Michael Pollan Was On Oprah

Last week, Michael Pollan was on the Oprah Show. (Click here to watch.)

What does this mean? Has "real food" hit the mainstream? Perhaps. At the very least, Michael Pollan's particular flavor of common-sense, easy-to-understand real food philosophy has reached a new level of mainstream audience. And he has continued his ascendancy in fame and fortune. Which is fantastic, as far as I'm concerned.

I've been waiting for the breakthrough event in the realm of real food—the Inconvenient Truth of the broken industrial food system, the system that hurts us every day, whose tentacles are growing to encircle even "organic" foods and small-time seed companies. I've been assuming this breakthrough would come in the form of a movie, for a few reasons: that's how Inconvenient Truth came; that's how many of the most popular food exposés have come in recent years; and people's attention spans these days are better matched to movies than to books.

But maybe the breakthrough will start with an interview on Oprah. People's attention spans are even better matched to talk shows.

Really, I don't care how it comes, or what it takes. As long as it comes. And it will come, once the real food movement reaches a critical mass.

The battle lines have been drawn, and a growing number of us are prepared to fight for real food, by whatever means necessary.

Food, Inc.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the movie Fresh. Last Monday night, I went to an advance screening of another food sustainability movie: Food, Inc. Food, Inc. is similar to Fresh in some ways. Both films cover a lot of the same territory covered by Omnivore's Dilemma; both include commentary from Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin; and both depict the gruesome reality of industrial animal and grain farming. Both filmmakers seem to have been motivated by the same desire for justice and transparency in our food system. Food, Inc., however, goes several steps farther than Fresh in detailing the ecological, nutritional, and ethical disasters of industrial meat and "conventional" monocrop farming. It also digs deeper into the ties between industry and government regulatory agencies, painting an unflattering picture of Republicans and Democrats alike. It is a film about both the big picture and the gritty details. If there's a movie out there that will lead people to abjure meat of unknown origin (MOUO), this is it. Food, Inc. will ultimately be more effective than Fresh. Food, Inc. is more incisive, more polished, has better distribution, and includes a clearer call-to-action for the viewer. For the same reasons, it will be the target of more antagonism. Already, even before the film had been released, Monsanto had posted a "fact" page taking issue with some of the claims of the film. (The filmmaker was on hand at the screening, and, not surprisingly, refuted pretty much all of Monsanto's claims.) That this film even got onto Monsanto's radar is significant. It means that the lines of battle are being drawn, and that the forces of industrial food are taking the real food movement seriously. Do you remember Fahrenheit 9/11 in summer of 2004, or An Inconvenient Truth in 2006? We need a breakthrough film for the cause of real food. Go see Food, Inc., and bring a friend or five. The more people who see this film, the more theatres it will reach, and the more press it will get. This is how movements start.