QuoteProject
Why don't we pay more attention to who our farmers are? We would never be as careless choosing an auto mechanic or babysitter as we are about who grows our food.
Michael Pollan
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes the importance of knowing and valuing the source of our food, comparing it to the careful consideration we give to choosing service providers.

Michael Pollan's quote highlights a significant disconnect in how we value the people who produce our food compared to other professionals we hire. He suggests that we should be just as discerning in selecting our farmers as we are when choosing mechanics or babysitters, as the quality of our food impacts our health and well-being.

Themes

FoodFarmersCarefulnessHealthResponsibility

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in discussions at farmer's markets to promote local farming.

More from Michael Pollan

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael PollanRead
You look how much sugar is in a typical supermarket loaf of bread: it's a lot of sugar. It's just become one of those sugar delivery systems in our food economy.
Michael PollanRead
There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we're eating them every day.
Michael PollanRead
Meat is a mighty contributor to climate change and other environmental problems. The amount of meat we're eating is one of the leading causes of climate change. It's as important as the kind of car you drive - whether you eat meat a lot or how much meat you eat.
Michael PollanRead
[Government] regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa.
Michael PollanRead
He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.
Michael PollanRead

Similar quotes

And while other passions in your life may at some point begin to bank their fires, the shared happiness of good homemade food can last as long as we do.
Marcella HazanRead
The greatest lesson came with the realization that good food cannot be reduced to single ingredients. It requires a web of relationships to support it.
Dan BarberRead
Don't you find it odd that people will put more work into choosing their mechanic or house contractor than they will into choosing the person who grows their food?
Joel SalatinRead
Eating is the secret to good cooking.
Julia ChildRead
I'm engaged in food on so many levels, and I love that. So my work, my craft, is around food, and writing is one aspect of it; communicating a narrative, cooking online is one aspect of it; solving the food chasm that we have in Harlem and finding a farmers market is another one, and all of them are equally exciting for me.
Marcus SamuelssonRead
I like the fact that Melbourne always seems to support their chefs and promote them in ways I find really admirable.
Anthony BourdainRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.