Talk:Michael Pollan

Untitled
Mansfield College, Oxford was where he studied abroad, not where he received his degree. He regularly lists it in his biographical abstracts out of a well-justified sense of academic inferiority, but study abroad does not merit inclusion as a major credential. I've removed it for this reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.155.120.181 (talk) 06:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Could someone explain Pollan's beef (pardon the pun) with Nutritionism?67.159.67.164 (talk) 21:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Editors: Be advised this article was edited by JMBleicher as part of a class project. . The edits represented the opinions of Michael Pollan as if they were factual, and as a result represent Pollan's points of view as facts. There is not a general scientific that "three principal food chains ... sustain American eaters," as JMBleicher declares. It is not JMBleicher's obligation to correct the existing views already embedded in the text he edited -- I took care of that for him. Since this is now part of a Harvard class project, it is noteworthy that the project editor failed to correct underlying bias in the text he edited. Marasandra 07:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Who cares whether this is a "class project" or not? What relevance does Harvard students editing it have?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.131.57 (talk) 07:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

From the article: "He blames those who set the rules (i.e., politicians in Washington, D.C., bureaucrats at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Wall Street capitalists, and agricultural conglomerates like Archer Daniels Midland) for what he calls a destructive and precarious agricultural system that has wrought havoc upon the diet, nutrition and well being of Americans." It seems that in The Omnivore's Dilemma the blaming of these people "who set the rules", especially with the "Wall Street capitalists" is more of Joel Salatin's viewpoint than Pollan's. Pollan does agree with a great deal of what Salatin says, but I feel that the sentence currently in the article is not completely accurate. Any suggestions on imporvements? 75.23.118.177 22:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

In Defense of Food redirect
Currently, In Defense of Food redirects to the Michael Pollan page. I'd like to go ahead and create a page of its own for the book. As a book that spent 6 weeks on top the New York Times Best seller list, I think it's worthy of it's own article. I'm bringing it up here in case there are any objections or if it was a conscious decision to previously not make an article and redirect instead. If no one has any issues, I'll probably go ahead and do it tomorrow. Vickser (talk) 18:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Since no one objected, I went ahead and made the redirect an article. It's just a stub, but if anyone would like to fix it up, please feel free to do so.  It's at In Defense of Food. Vickser (talk) 01:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The paragraph on In Defence of Food says that he critiques nutritionism, "with a focus on late 20th century food advice given by the science community. " I would like this wording to be changed to, " "with a focus on late 20th century food advice given by the nutritionist community. " One of Pollan's most important and enduring points is that there *is no science* behind "food advice" by "experts".  He researches the data behind the nutritionism claims and diets and shows that there simply is none.  One can define the scientific method as making objective tests of predictions.  In this case, there is a clear prediction that people who eat highly nutritious food should have better health, and that people who eat diets with this or that nutrient characteristic should lose weight, and again, be healthier.  There is *no* evidence for any of these claims on the long term; the more the US followed these fads, the fatter and sicker it got.  Nutritionism, or if you prefer to avoid labels, the prevailing diet prescriptions, looking at food mainly in terms of fat content, or balance of carbohydrates, protien, etc, all have no convincing support when examined by the scientific method (epidemiology, i.e. the statistics of large populations, shows just the opposite). This is his devastating indictment of "nutritionism", identifying the ideas and diets he examines as clearly pseudo-science, and the most important thing in this book (in my opinion).

Later in the article, people critique his use of, and purported cherry-picking of, scientific evidence. I think this is good, should be kept, and in no way changes my arguments above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:644:102:E390:59EB:E967:3B20:9809 (talk) 04:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Change your mind
"mind altering" changed to "psychedelic drugs". "mind altering is too broad, could include alcohol, caffeine and heroin. He uses and defends the uuse of the word "psychedelic". Others refer to them as entheogens.

Open Letter
Is his recent NY Times Open Letter about reforming the food economy noteworthy? He was interviewed on Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR about it. ThuranX (talk) 04:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

On Whole Foods
A link to his discussion about Whole Foods boycott. ThuranX (talk) 16:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Heritage
What is his heritage? I assume it's Ashkenazic Jewish on both sides, but from which part(s) of Europe? Badagnani (talk) 03:33, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Missing decade?
so what happened between 1981 and 1991 ?

69.248.248.11 (talk) 01:28, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Criticism?
"Writing in the American Enterprise Institute's magazine, Blake Hurst argues that Pollan offers a shallow assessment of factory farming that does not take cost into account."

With criticism like that, who needs praise? ---Dagme (talk) 20:16, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I've encountered a lot of criticism on Pollan's work. Particularly, this article: http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/the-omnivore2019s-delusion-against-the-agri-intellectuals

[while I'm not against citing works critical of Pollan, look at your source for this one!]Jancoe (talk) 06:31, 6 August 2010 (UTC) jancoe

And Jonathan Foer's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_Animals

I think a criticism section would be correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.64.168.70 (talk) 19:45, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the quote from a "Angel Flinn", that published an article that criticize Pollan on a "The NZ Vegetarian Society" whose "About as" page start with: "Info about the society’s members. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas..... If somoene has better sources, please feel free to revert my changes. --Dia^ (talk) 16:58, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The criticisms of Pollan by Vasile Stanescu are incredibly weak. First is Vasile's claim that Pollan argues solely for locavorism; that is simply not true, Pollan argues for increased consumption of locally produced foods, not for us to eat ONLY locally produced foods. The second criticism, that Pollan in his earlier works rarely talks about reducing meat consumption, is cherry picking. In his "latest" works, Pollan actually recommends eating less meat, see his latest Food Rules. The third criticism, that he's a hypocrite for supporting locavorism while protesting against the mistreatment of migrant farm workers, is laughable. Supporting local food production does not automatically mean you have to be FOR the mistreatment of migrant farm workers, local food production can and should be ethical in its treatment of migrant farm workers. The fourth criticism, that he's hypocritical because he supports sustainability while travelling extensively, is weak. Who really knows how much Pollan travels? Does Stanescu not travel at all? Isn't travelling to other parts of the world essential if you want to reach a large amount of people? Maybe he buys carbon offsets? Regardless, I'm sure the many thousands and thousands of people he has influenced to change their lifestyles has made up for his travelling emissions. Finally, the criticism that while Pollan condemns the treatment of Mexican farm workers on organic farms he also supports "xenophobic" Joel Salatin's farming practices. I really don't see a connection between the two, Pollan supports Salatin's farming PRACTICES not his views on immigration and foreigners. While Salatin may be anti-immigration in some respects, that has little to do with his sustainable farming practices. Stanescu's criticisms are severely lacking in logic, and should be removed from this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.119.232.231 (talk) 21:06, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

The beginning of the criticism section seems pretty editorialized to me 50.190.111.28 (talk) 23:59, 11 March 2015 (UTC)Miro

Grammar...
This sentence from the article is messed up, perhaps misuse of a colon. I can't correct it because the meaning is garbled. "Later, he tempers that injunction: to what your great-great-grandmothers generation would have recognized as food, but that is solely to vilify sugar - this being approximately when refined sugar became generally accessible."

"liberal foodie intellectual"
"A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."

This is a statement about the New York Times, not about Michael Pollan. I am going to remove it. ---Dagme (talk) 20:10, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Jon Entine accusation
It's interesting to see the Jon Entine accusation mentioned in the article: "Pollan has been accused by Jon Entine, who supports GMOs, of using his influence to promote "anti-GMO junk science"." I personally think that Jon Entine, the founder of Genetic Literacy Project, uses *his* influence to promote pro-GMO junk science, as that site is pretty much a mouthpiece for the industry, a PR campaign for it. Just making this note regarding that person. SageRad (talk) 17:22, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Critique
I find this entry largely lacks good summaries of valid critiques. It comes off like some fringe folk slightly disagree rather than Pollan's general tendancy to dismiss scientific sources not fitting his journalistic or book narratives even when they outnumber his preferred sources by orders or magnitude. Of course, everyone writer this, though given the scope of the topics he chooses, combined with scope of mainstream readership, there is serious need to highlight this in entry on Pollan The issue is sourcing these things, so I'll start to source this properly. Just noting however that currently the entry in this zone is very unbalanced for the passing readerr

Interviews
Is the interviews section necessary? Could one not find these interviews elsewhere? It seems to set a poor precedent to start listing every interview conducted with every living or dead person who has an entry on Wikipedia. Past Bedtime   [no sleep]   16:46, 15 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree that it's unnecessary. Many people are interviewed, and many people are interviewed numerous times, and while a particular interview can be notable, it's not really an original "work" which should be appear in a person's bibliography. If anyone is particularly attached to any of these interviews and believes they are noteworthy, they should incorporate them into the text; otherwise, the section should be deleted. 100.40.6.4 (talk) 16:16, 18 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your response! Past Bedtime    [no sleep]   16:46, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

help correcting an error
Hello, I am Michael Pollan's assistant. Michael's middle name is listed incorrectly on this page. His full name is Michael Kevin Pollan, not Michael Aaron Pollan. I am hoping that someone in the Wikipedia community may be able to correct this. Here is a link to his website that shows his full name: Thank you! Mhmnm (talk) 13:09, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , I see the update has been made. Moving on. —¿philoserf? (talk) 17:11, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Including essays in bibliography
The page current includes a bibliography, which like many writer bibliographies, includes essays. User:Drmies does not think this is appropriate so I am opening up a Talk page discussion section to reach consensus. Bodole (talk) 20:29, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Bodole said "Many of Pollan's most significant works are essays. This is standard practice on WP:BLP. I will open up a Talk page discuss. Please do not edit war again". The three points here are all false or misleading. a. That they are his "most significant works" is highly, highly doubtful given that he has almost a dozen books with major publishers; if they are, then secondary sources will back up Bodole's claim. b. This listing/linking of essays is not standard practice in BLPs. I assume Bodole means "articles on writers", and not "BLP", but it is simply not true. I've written hundreds of those articles, and have edited thousands. Bodole, with their 240 edits, can be forgiven for their inexperience, but they probably should not promote falsehoods here. c. "Please do not edit war again"? Please do not revert another editor if you don't know what you are talking about. Drmies (talk) 20:58, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh,, you keep pointing to BRD. That's a guideline, not a policy, first of all. Second, the "D" stands for discuss--you're not discussing anything, you're just saying I'm wrong. In the meantime, you're just continuing with pointy and nasty edits and inept edit summaries. Drmies (talk) 21:01, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I will respond to each point.
 * a. This is not doubtful. For one he can have more than a dozen significant works. He has been writing for decades including professional journalism for the New York Times. I think you misunderstand the role of reliable sources. They are not a metric for what content can go in an article but instead what makes for a WP article as a whole.
 * b. It is not a falsehood. As I mentioned on the other page in response to your edit warring (Jacy Reese Anthis) you can see many examples of this on other BLP if you look at a list such as List of 21st-century writers. In the first section (last name A) 7 pages include shortform work. Please do not condescend me with claims of "inexperience."
 * c. I do know what I am talking about, but our disagreements on the content of individual pages is not the main issue here. The issue is your edit warring behavior which is inappropriate regardless of who is right about the content.
 * d. I am discussing. It is an important guideline that you are disregarding in favor of disruptive and ad hominem attacks on these pages. Bodole (talk) 21:15, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Separately I agree with User:Black Kite that the list, if it remains, should not be written as citations but should be listed as normal list items. Bodole (talk) 21:35, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Brother of Tracy Pollan
The fact that he is the brother of Tracy Pollan is noteworthy and should be in the article. ---Dagme (talk) 14:48, 1 January 2022 (UTC)