Pollan-Nation: One Man's Defense of Food

BERKELEY, Calif., May 8, 2008— -- I admit it: I used to be a consumer of cereal bars. I was busy, harried and needed to get my whole-grain goodness in a box every morning. But that was before I read Michael Pollan's books. Who is Michael Pollan, and why should I let him tell me what to eat?

"I'm not a scientist, I'm not an expert, I'm not a foodie," Pollan told "Nightline's" John Donvan. "I'm just a guy looking at our food supply, figuring out what I should feed my kid. And I looked at the science in great detail and was very disappointed to find that nutritional science remains pretty sketchy. It's really amazing actually, how little is known about what we need to be healthy."

Pollan may not be a scientist, but he is a best-selling author, journalist, the Knight professor of Journalism at University of California-Berkeley, a contributing writer to the New York Times, lecturer, gardener, husband, father, thinker. His most recent book, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto," spent six weeks at No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List and is being sold and feverishly bought all around the globe. His advice is simple.

Eat food.

Not too much.

Mostly plants.

People are listening to Pollan's message, and he says it all started with a small road trip.

"I was driving down Route 5 in California from San Francisco and hitting a stretch of road where suddenly this smell came up; you know assaulted me, this incredible smell of I don't know what," Pollan recalled. "It didn't smell like cow manure, which is not a bad smell when you experience it in New England. It smelled like the men's room at the old Port Authority on Eighth Avenue. It was really horrific. And it was another five miles before I hit this feed lot, which is right on the road. I mean the cattle come right up to the highway, and it is black with black cows and cow manure as far as you can see."

The experience of seeing cows feeding not on grass in a pasture, but on the side of a highway, was the beginning of Pollan's mission.

The Berkeley Ecology Center

Berkeley Farmers Market

Marin Organic

Star Route Farms, Bolinas, Calif.

Yale University

Yale Sustainable Food Project