Michael Pollan is a man who really understands the complexities and importance of the vast undertaking we are working on in our small way in our small corner of the world here - a complete redo of the industrial food system for the sake of our health, the health of our communities, and the health of the world. Every time I get to read some of his writing or an interview with him, it is time well spent to garner some of his thoughtfulness, insight, and understanding of how all the pieces might fit together as we build a new food system.

Here’s a piece of an interview with Michael Pollan from the February 2009 Mother Jones:

MJ: The food activism community is criticized as being elitist, blind to the issues of cost. How do we democratize better quality?

MP: It is the important question. One of the problems is that the government supports unhealthy food and does very little to support healthy food. I mean, we subsidize high fructose corn syrup. We subsidize hydrogenated corn oil. We do not subsidize organic food. We subsidize four crops that are the building blocks of fast food. And you also have to work on access. We have food deserts in our cities. We know that the distance you live from a supplier of fresh produce is one of the best predictors of your health. And in the inner city, people don’t have grocery stores. So we have to figure out a way of getting supermarkets and farmers markets into the inner cities.

MJ: By mandates?

MP: When we give people on the wic [Women, Infants, and Children] program or food stamps farmers market vouchers, lo and behold, the farmers markets show up in those neighborhoods. That said, one of the best things that Obama could do would be build 12-month farmers markets, especially in inner cities, those beautiful glass buildings you see in Barcelona or Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. It would drive economic development and local agriculture.

The other way that you democratize the food movement is pay enough for the school lunch system to buy local food, fresh food, because right now it’s all frozen and processed. You will improve the health of the students and the local economy. Supposedly it would take about a dollar per student per day.

[1]  Read the full article here and don’t forget to visit our own almost-year-round-but-not-yet-in-a-beautiful-glass-building winter market on Saturday, March 7th from 10am-2pm at the Stratham Town Hall. [2] More information here>