Westword Interviews Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan

The Denver arts-and-entertainment weekly Westword recently interviewed food writer Michael Pollan, known for pithy sayings such as "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."



The interview is in two parts: one and two.



Here is a snippet:

Denver has a growing season of about a minute and a half, which makes it very difficult to stay local. What do you say to cities like us that don't have the same access to locality as cites like San Francisco, for example? And how important/necessary is it to stay local?



You do what you can. It's important to be reasonable and not fanatical. But it's worth remembering that most places ate local a hundred years ago, and there are great techniques for preserving food. Fermentation of vegetables has gotten a great many people through the long winters, with plenty of vitamins and nutrients from plants. Then there's meat, and cheese. History is our guide here, though many of us may want a more diversified diet than our forebears had during the winter months.