Making a Difference, One Bite at a Time

While researching and writing his books In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and The Omnivore's Dilemma, renowned author Michael Pollan learned the exact origins of the food he eats. This investigation into the food chain drastically changed what makes it to the dinner table at his California home.

Bestselling author Michael Pollan

Pollan says he spends less money at the supermarket and more in places like the farmers market. He grows some of his own food, buys some directly from local farmers and eats only grass-fed meat. He encouraged others to do the same during a presentation at "Michael Pollan: Live and Unprocessed," a Bastyr University fundraising event held October 30 at Bell Harbor Auditorium in Seattle. He also discussed how eating well can be a gratifying way to change the world.

Today, Pollan's books and his contributions as an environmental writer for The New York Times are at the helm of a groundbreaking movement to find alternatives to the industrial food chain that are behind, what he calls, America's "National Eating Disorder."

According to Pollan, America's eating disorder stems from a food chain that manufactures much of our nation's food supply in large factories, draws the majority of its energy from fossil fuels, and aims to produce food at the lowest financial cost to consumers. This food chain, however, is far from sustainable. It is also the cause of countless food-poisoning scares, decades of inhumane animal treatment and the obesity epidemic.

"Cheap food is very expensive to our health, to the environment, to the public purse and to the health of animals. It has a very high price," Pollan says, noting that 25 percent of America's greenhouse gases can be traced to food production.