Wednesday, January 06th, 2010 | Author: KristenM  | 

Michael Pollan interviewed by Jon Stewart. How can that be anything but perfectly entertaining?

Pollan is promoting his newest book. Yes, you loved him for The Omnivore’s Dilemma. And you probably enjoyed In Defense of Food. His newest book is more like a pamphlet. It’s called Food Rules, and is on sale at Amazon for a mere $5.50. The new book contains 64 food rules which Pollan collected from people around the world. The few I’ve read are simple, funny, and fairly well on-target. I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest to see whether they’re all as good.

The segment began with Jon Stewart asking a straightforward question: Name one over-arching rule that summarizes the book.

“This is going to sound weird,” Pollan answered, “but it’s eat food.”

They then go on to discuss the difference between real food and edible food-like substances.

It only gets better from there. Watch the whole 6 minute segment below:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Pollan
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
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Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

  1. Michael Pollan On Marketing Food
  2. Michael Pollan on Cooking As Soulcraft
  3. Michael Pollan: On Traditional Food Cultures
  4. Real Food LOVE
  5. Junk Food Isn’t All Bad




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21 Responses
  1. Awesome interview. Too bad he didn’t have more time. The Daily Show would be an ideal platform to get across more important truths through humor.
    DanielthePoet´s last blog post …Mojofiti, the Language Barrier, and the Tower of Babel My ComLuv Profile

    • KristenM says:

      Yeah, I was actually disappointed about how short the segment was, too! He only had about 6 minutes when he was on The Colbert Report last year, so maybe that’s a rule for these comedy shows. One 6 minute segment per guest, or people start tuning out. Too bad, though!

  2. Only $5.50? An awful lot of people are going to be getting this as a gift from me, whether they like it or not ~grin~ I love what I’ve read out of it so far.
    Cara @ Health Home and Happiness´s last blog post …Hamburgers on Portobello Mushrooms with Squash Fries My ComLuv Profile

    • KristenM says:

      Me too. My only inner-warning comes because of how anti-saturated fat Pollan was in his book In Defense of Food. I’d want to read the rest of his “rules” first before passing out the book as a gift, just to make sure there wasn’t anything blatantly WRONG in it.

      I might take issue with how incomplete some of them are, but I can’t honestly complain. For example, one of his rules is “don’t eat any breakfast cereal that turns your milk a different color.” And that’s totally true as far as it goes, but I’d be much more radical and say something like “don’t eat any store bought breakfast cereal at all.” That’s because it’s virtually impossible to find something made from sprouted/soaked whole grains, and we eat far too many grains in the first place.

  3. Julie says:

    I thought the interview was good. I wish more information could have been discussed. I think the idea that more government involvement can solve anything is flawed. It seems like every suggestion the government makes on food ie. food pyramid, soy, subsidies… is wrong. I think independent research keeps it honest and government research is more about “who” is doing the research and “what” they want than actual facts.

    • KristenM says:

      Julie — That’s a good point, too. It’s the law of unintended consequences. Subsidies are a great example of that. Pollan suggests we subsidize different, better things rather than throwing out subsidies altogether. I’m not sure I agree with him. Wouldn’t it be better to have no subsidies and ALL independent research? Food would then reflect it’s real cost, rather than having the cheapest foods also be the ones most likely to harm you (and the enviroment). And research would be much easier to understand.

      • Annie says:

        Yes, I think independent research would definitely be most effective at making food’s cost reflect its true value. Interesting thought. At first I liked his comment about changing what is subsidized, but I think you have a really good point.

        Thanks for the video clip.

  4. Jessica says:

    great video clip!
    Jessica´s last blog post …resolutions & many other things My ComLuv Profile

  5. tina says:

    Very good point about health insurance companies actually caring about our health. That’s the best reason I’ve heard for getting the health care bill passed.

  6. Ginny says:

    Thanks for sharing this great video clip. Michael did a great job on the show.
    Ginny´s last blog post …Happy New Year! My ComLuv Profile

  7. Karla B. says:

    I missed what Pollan quipped at the end when Stewart said “every time after the show I eat a triple.. quadruple..”. Did anyone get it?

    • KristenM says:

      He said: “bypass?”

      To which Jon uncontrollably laughed and said, “good one!”

      We never found out what Jon was actually confessing to, though. I bet it would have been equally as funny.

  8. I love Michael Pollan! Thanks for highlighting this clip—I would have totally missed it otherwise ;)
    Extreme Fitness Results´s last blog post …How To Do Bicep Curls Right My ComLuv Profile

  9. I was tempted by the book this week and caved (for $11! I’m crying that I could have gotten it for half that!) and read it in 45 minutes. Of 64 rules, I only had problems with 3 (maybe 4). Two are about meat/saturated fat, as you expected. The other is “drink your spinach water” in which he recommends using the veggie cooking water in other parts of the meal. He doesn’t realize the oxalic acid in spinach water is toxic, I guess… A fun read nonetheless, and very manageable.
    Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship´s last blog post …My Story: Get Out of the Pool! My ComLuv Profile

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