Michael Pollan at Miller Auditorium ties lack of home cooking to what ails us

As the main floor of Miller Auditorium filled up, then the Grand Tier and the audience spilled into the balcony there was no mistaking how important food matters are in Kalamazoo and across the region.

More than 2,500 people turned out to see Michael Pollan, author and expert on how the worlds of food, agriculture, health and environment intersect.

The Kalamazoo Community Foundation brought Pollan to the area for its annual meeting and as part Western Michigan University Center for the Humanities Speaker Series on the Healing Arts.

Before Pollan took the stage, Carrie Pickett-Erway. CEO and president of the Kalamazoo Community Foundation welcomed the full house and put forward the Foundation's vision of a community where everyone can reach his or her full potential.

A video that sums up what the Foundation hopes to help the community achieve shows many Kalamazooans telling what matters to them. The message continues, saying the Foundation has supported hundreds of community groups over the years  because "community matters, and when community matters, people protect it, care for it, and care for the people in it."

The audience is then asked: "What if just because you live in Kalamazoo County it meant you were loved, cared for, educated and empowered… that you mattered. We envision a community where every person matters." (See the full video here.) 

Acknowledging that reaching one's full potential is something that can't be accomplished without proper nutrition, Pickett-Erway introduced Pollan.

Pollan told the crowd that as a journalist he never thought cooking was a subject he would take seriously. Yet it is the topic of his latest book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, and a natural progression in his work that has examined the links of the food chain from the farm and its soil, to slaughterhouses and feedlots, to what happens in the body after we eat food.  

Two events convinced him of the need to write a book on the importance of cooking. One was a visit to a farmer who grows potatoes for McDonald restaurants. Pollan painted a picture with words of the 175-acre farm where irrigation creates the giant green circles one sees as they fly over the country.

This particular farm grows the only kind of potatoes that McDonald's will buy--Russet Burbanks. They are a variety that grows long so that when cut they create a bouquet of fries spilling out of the red box. If McDonald's is to use them the potatoes cannot have any brown streaks running through them, so the farmer douses his growing potatoes in a chemical to keep brown streaks from forming in them.

Pollan says this chemical is so toxic that after it is spread on the potatoes the farmer cannot go back into the field for three days. Even if his irrigation breaks down and he is threatened with the loss of an entire field of potatoes, the farmer will not go back into the field.

The farmer also took him to see a building Pollan said was as tall as Miller Auditorium where potatoes were piled in a giant pyramid after being harvested. There the potatoes rest for six weeks so the chemicals they have been treated with while growing can be off gassed.

"The point is that we, as people who like McDonald's french fries, are complicit in creating this landscape," Pollan said. The fast food industry with its requirement of uniform food has been the driver of the industrialized farm that grow or raise a single product and the types of farms Pollan described.

Though industrialized food has made its way into our kitchens, for years Americans resisted it. Finally, when working mothers had to get a break in their schedules home cooking is what they gave up, though laundry and housecleaning is what they wanted less of.

But corporations cook differently than people do. They use the cheapest raw materials so people who eat processed food are a lot less healthy.

"The problem with corporate cooked food is that it changes the kind of food we eat and we don't get the kind of agriculture we want to support," Pollan said.

"We have outsourced cooking and haven't looked back. But as it has left our lives it has fueled our imagination. We watch cooking shows on television that make it look intimidating with flashing knives and complicated recipes. Millions spend more time watching others prepare food on TV than they spend cooking themselves. Here's the thing with food on TV. You never get to eat it."  

The second event that led to the most recent book was the rare night where his family was trying to eat a dinner of items purchased in the single-portion aisle of the grocery store. As they tried to prepare dinner in the microwave it became clear that they would not be able to eat together as the meals would never all be done at the same time and still be warm enough to eat.

To sell more food, this kind of disjointed meal is what the processed food industry promotes, Pollan said. Studies have shown we now spend about 27 minutes a day cooking and 4 minutes a day cleaning up. "Even less if all are doing is throwing away the pizza box."

These experiences convinced him it was time to take a serious look at cooking and reframe how we look at it nutritionally and emotionally, creating meals that are "really satisfying and really fun."  

He explained that learning to cook is what differentiated us from other primates. Through cooking, food is becomes partially digested. As a result we could spend more time using our brains, which led to developing cultures and civilizations. Other primates spend half of their day chewing.

In his new book, Pollan explores how fire, water, air, and earth transform food. He learned to grill with fire, to cook with liquid, put air into food through baking, and use microbes (earth) for fermented food such as cheese.

"Patience, practise, and presence are the keys to cooking well. Presence is the hardest for me to wrap my brain around because there's always that sense that I could be doing something else. But when we slow down we get better and better and better."

In a question and answer period following his remarks, Pickett-Erway presented a number of the questions submitted by people of the community in anticipation of Pollan's appearance.

To a question on how to deal with food insecurity Pollan responded: "Give them more money as a start." Good food does cost more, he said, "but the answer is not to drive down the price of food -- farmers are not getting rich out there -- we need to pay everyone a decent wage so they can afford real food."

He went on to detail programs, such as Double Up Food Bucks, that allow those using what used to be known as food stamps to spend them at Farmers Market and have those funds go twice as far as they would in the grocery store. Some communities are using food policy councils to get food to the people who need it. Reviewing the food system to find places that can be gleaned also is being a way to help.

Regarding food policy, Pollan said those in charge of contracting for food to feed large groups or institutions could require a certain percentage be local food and that it be harvested by those paid a fair wage. "You have the power to change the whole food chain," Pollan said.

Kathy Jennings is the managing editor of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave. She is a freelance writer and editor.

Works by Michael Pollan

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World