Quotessence
Home / Authors / Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllFoodPeopleEatingCookingCornIfsWayThinkingAnimalWorldNeedsPlantDietsEnvironmentHumansProblemWellsFarmersKnowsCulture

Famous Michael Pollan Quotes

“Corn is the hero of its own story, and though we humans played a crucial supporting role in its rise to world domination, it would be wrong to suggest we have been calling the shots, or acting always in our own best interests. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that corn has succeeded in domesticating us.”

WorldBelieveHumansHas BeensReasonStoriesWould BeInterestActingRolesHeroCallingShotsPlantCrucialDominationCornWorld DominationSupporting RolesCalling The Shots
Book:The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World
Create image

“Wrangham cites several studies indicating that in fact humans don't do well on raw food: they can't maintain their body weight, and half of the women on a raw-food regimen stop menstruating. Devotees of raw food rely heavily on juicers and blenders, because otherwise they would have to spend as much time chewing as the chimps do. It is difficult, if not impossible, to extract sufficient energy from unprocessed plant matter to power a body with such a big, hungry brain.”

IfsHumansWellsMatterFactsBodyBigsEnergyDifficultBrainHalfStudyImpossibleWeightPlantHungrySufficientRelyChewingDevoteeCitingRaw FoodBlendersBody Weight
Book:Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation
Create image

“The entire history of baby formula has been the history of one overlooked nutrient after another...and still to this day babies fed on the most "nutritionally complete" formula fail to do as well as babies fed human milk. Even more than margarine, formula stands as the ultimate test product of nutritionism and a fair index of its hubris.”

HumansWellsHas BeensStillsFailingProductsBabyFairsTestsUltimateFedsThis DayFormulasMilkOverlookedHubrisNutrients
Author:Michael Pollan
Create image

“When you're cooking with food as alive as this -- these gorgeous and semigorgeous fruits and leaves and flesh -- you're in no danger of mistaking it for a commodity, or a fuel, or a collection of chemical nutrients. No, in the eye of the cook or the gardener ... this food reveals itself for what it is: no mere thing but a web of relationships among a great many living beings, some of them human, some not, but each of them dependent on each other, and all of them ultimately rooted in soil and nourished by sunlight.”

HumansEyeAliveDangerCookingMereFruitFleshCooksSoilFuelCollectionsDependentChemicalsRootedSunlightCommodityGorgeousGardenerNutrients
Author:Michael Pollan
Create image

“But human deciding what to eat without professional guidance - something they have been doing with notable success since coming down out of the trees - is seriously unprofitable if you're a food company, a definite career loser if you're nutritionist, and just plain boring if you're a newspaper editor or reporter.”

IfsHumansHas BeensCompanyCareersTreeBoringNewspapersGuidanceEditorsLoserReportersDefiniteNotableNutritionistNewspaper Editors
Book:In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Create image

“People have traditionally turned to ritual to help them frame and acknowledge and ultimately even find joy in just such a paradox of being human - in the fact that so much of what we desire for our happiness and need for our survival comes at a heavy cost.”

PeopleNeedsHumansFactsHelpingJoyDesireNatureCostSurvivalHeavyAcknowledgeParadoxRitualBeing Human
Book:A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder
Create image

“Food is also about pleasure, about community, about family and spirituality, about our relationship to the natural world, and about expressing our identity. As long as humans have been taking meals together, eating has been as much about culture as it has been about biology.”

WorldHumansLongHas BeensTogetherCultureSpiritualityCommunityNaturalPleasureIdentityEatingMealsBiologyOur RelationshipNatural WorldAbout Family
Book:In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Create image