Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael PollanRead
The gardener cultivates wildness, but he does so carefully and respectfully, in full recognition of its mystery.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of nurturing nature while respecting its inherent unpredictability and complexity.
Michael Pollan's quote reflects the delicate balance between human intervention and the wildness of nature. It suggests that while gardeners actively shape and care for their plants and surroundings, they must also acknowledge and honor the mysterious and uncontrollable aspects of the natural world, recognizing that true cultivation involves a respectful partnership with nature's inherent wildness.
Themes
GardeningNatureWildnessCultivationMystery
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a gardening workshop to inspire participants to embrace the unpredictability of nature.
More from Michael Pollan
All quotes →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.
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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.
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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.
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[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.
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