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Michael Kevin Pollan (/ˈpɒlən/; born February 6, 1955)[1] is an American author and journalist, who is currently the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Pollan is best known for his books that explore the socio-cultural impacts of food, such as The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Early years

Pollan was born to a Jewish family on Long Island, New York.[3][4] He is the son of author and financial consultant Stephen Pollan and columnist Corky Pollan.[5] Pollan received a B.A. in English from Bennington College in 1977 and an M.A. in English from Columbia University in 1981.

Career

The Botany of Desire

In The Botany of Desire, Pollan explores the concept of co-evolution, specifically of humankind's evolutionary relationship with four plants—apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes—from the dual perspectives of humans and the plants. He uses case examples that fit the archetype of four basic human desires, demonstrating how each of these botanical species are selectively grown, bred, and genetically engineered. The apple reflects the desire for sweetness, the tulip for beauty, marijuana for intoxication, and the potato for control.

Throughout the book, Pollan explores the narrative of his own experience with each of the plants, which he then intertwines with a well-researched exploration into their social history. Each section presents a unique element of human domestication, or the "human bumblebee" as Pollan calls it. These range from the true story of Johnny Appleseed to Pollan's first-hand research with sophisticated marijuana hybrids in Amsterdam, to the alarming and paradigm-shifting possibilities of genetically engineered potatoes. Pollan is critical of industrial monoculture claiming it leads to crops less able to defend themselves against predators and requiring large amounts of pesticides and fertilizers which upsets the natural ecosystem.[citation needed]

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

In 2009, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual was published. This short work is a condensed version of his previous efforts, intended to provide a simple framework for a healthy and sustainable diet. It is divided into three sections, further explicating Pollan's principles of "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." It includes his rules (i.e., "let others sample your food" and "the whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead").

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

In Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, published in 2013, Pollan explores the methods by which cooks mediate "between nature and culture." The book is organized into four sections corresponding to the classical elements of Fire (cooking with heat), Water (braising and boiling with pots), Air (breadmaking), and Earth (fermenting). The book also features Samin Nosrat, who later became known for the bestselling cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and as "the chef who taught Michael Pollan how to cook."[7] A 2016 Netflix documentary series created by Alex Gibney is based on the book, starring Michael Pollan and Isaac Pollan.

How to Change Your Mind

In 2018, Pollan wrote How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, a book about the history and future of psychedelic drugs. The book became a No. 1 New York Times best-seller. He argues that psilocybin and LSD are not drugs that make people crazy, which he calls the biggest misconception people have about psychedelics,[9] but rather drugs that can help a person become "more sane" by, for example, eliminating a fear of death. While promoting his book on TV, he explained that along with LSD and psilocybin, his research included ingesting ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT, and that he experienced a dissolution of ego.[10][11] Based on his 2018 book Pollan leads the way in the Netflix docuseries How to Change Your Mind exploring the history and uses of psychedelics, including LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline.

This Is Your Mind on Plants

His book This Is Your Mind on Plants was released on July 6, 2021, and explores in particular opium, caffeine, and mescaline.[13] Pollan is trying to start a post war on drugs conversation that better takes into account how different one drug is from another and figures out cultural containers for each of them, to use them safely and productively.[14] The book ends with a ceremony around the use of San Pedro (Echinopsis Pachanoi), a relatively fast growing Andean cactus that contains mescaline.[15][16]

Other work

Pollan is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a former executive editor for Harper's Magazine. His first book, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education, was published in 1991.

Pollan has contributed to Greater Good, a social psychology magazine published by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. His article "Edible Ethics" discusses the intersection of ethical eating and social psychology.

In his 1998 book A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder, Pollan methodically traced the design and construction of the out-building where he writes. The 2008 re-release of this book was re-titled A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams.

Pollan wrote and narrated an audiobook, Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World, for Audible.com

In 2014, Pollan wrote the foreword in the healthy eating cookbook The Pollan Family Table. The book is co-authored by his mother, Corky Pollan, and sisters, Lori Pollan, Dana Pollan, and Tracy Pollan.

Pollan also co-starred in the documentary, Food, Inc. (2008), for which he was also a consultant. In 2010 Pollan was interviewed for the film Queen of the Sun: What are the bees telling us?, a feature-length documentary about honey bees and colony collapse disorder.[17] He was also interviewed for Vanishing of the Bees, a documentary also about colony collapse, directed by Maryam Henein and George Langworthy. In 2015, a documentary version of Pollan's book In Defense of Food premiered on PBS.[18] In 2016, Netflix released a four-part documentary series, which was based on Pollan's book, Cooked (2013), and was directed by Alex Gibney.

Starting November 2022, he teaches an online subscription MasterClass course on Intentional Eating.

Courtesy – Wikipedia
- Michael Pollan

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