STANFORD, Calif. – Acclaimed author Michael Pollan has spent his career writing, researching and teaching about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: food, agriculture, gardens, drugs, and architecture. In a one-hour lecture on March 3 at Stanford University’s Kresge Auditorium, Pollan will consider both worlds as he answers the rhetorical question, “What should we eat?”
The event, which begins at 7:30 pm, is free and open to the public. This event is co-sponsored by the Program in Human Biology, Stanford Hospital & Clinics, the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Ethics in Society, Center on Ethics, Residential Education and the Charles F. Riddell Fund.
Pollan, an award winning author and Professor of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley, says that most people have eaten what tradition (their family and culture) and nature dictated. Today, says Pollan, there exists something called "nutritionism," an ideology promoted by science, the food industry, government and the media that has “hopelessly confused the issue and done nothing for our health, except to make it worse.”
In his lecture, Pollan will trace the rise and triumph of nutritionism and the Western Diet, before proposing an alternative approach to eating that promises to improve both our health and the health of the environment.
Pollan is the author, most recently, of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. His previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. It was a New York Times bestseller, won the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award, the James Beard Award for best food writing, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Pollan's previous book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, was also a New York Times bestseller, received the Borders Original Voices Award for the best non-fiction work of 2001, and was recognized as a best book of the year by the American Booksellers Association and Amazon.com. He is also the author of A Place of My Own (1997) and Second Nature (1991).
A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine since 1987, his writing has
received numerous awards, including the James Beard Award for best magazine series in 2003; the John Burroughs prize (for the best natural history essay in 1997); the QPB New Vision Award (for his first book, Second Nature); the 2000 Reuters-I.U.C.N. Global Award for Environmental Journalism for his reporting on genetically modified crops; and the 2003 Humane Society of the United States’ Genesis Award for his writing on animal agriculture.
In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. In addition to teaching, he lectures widely on food, agriculture, and gardening.
Pollan, who was born in 1955, grew up on Long Island, and was educated at Bennington College, Oxford University, and Columbia University, from which he received a Master’s in English.
Event: Michael Pollan Lecture
Topic: “In Defense of Food: The Omnivore’s Solution”
Date and Time: Monday, March 3, 2008, 7:30 PM
Location: Kresge Auditorium, Stanford University
Admission: Free and open to the public
URL: http://events.stanford.edu/events/121/12187/
About Stanford Hospital & Clinics
Stanford Hospital & Clinics is known worldwide for advanced treatment of complex disorders in areas such as cardiac care, cancer treatment, neurosciences, surgery, and organ transplants. Ranked #15 on the U.S. News and World Report annual list of “America’s Best Hospitals,” Stanford Hospital & Clinics is internationally recognized for translating medical breakthroughs into the care of patients. The Hospital is part of the Stanford University Medical Center, along with the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. For more information, visit www.stanfordhospital.com.