May 4, 2008, 10:00 am: New York, NY; Times Talks: What We Eat (conversation with editor Gerry Marzorati)

October 30, 2008, Time TBA: Kenmore, WA; Bastyr University

May 2008, Michael Pollan on Nightline

April 2008, New Haven, CT; Yale University, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity

March 2008, Democracy Now interview: In Defense of Food: Michael Pollan on Nutrition, Food Science, and the American Diet

March 2008, Mountain View, CA: Authors @ Google, In Defense of Food

March 2008, Salt Lake City, UT: Utah Museum of Natural History

February 2008, Portland, OR: In Conversation with Deborah Kane

January 2008, San Francisco, CA: Michael Pollan at Grace Cathedral

January 2008, Stanford, CA: Stanford School of Medicine; Michael Pollan on Nutritionism

January 2008, Louisville, KY: Kentucky Author Forum

October 2007, Williamstown, MA; Williams College

March 2007, Monterey, CA: 2007 TED Conference: The Omnivore's Next Dilemma

February 2006, Cambridge, MA: 2006 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism: Michael Pollan discusses science and nature writing

October 2005, Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Writers at Work

September 2005, Arcata, CA: Humboldt State University; The High Cost of Cheap Food

August 2005, Asilomar, CA; 2005 Ecofarm Conference (PART I of transcript)

August 2005, Asilomar, CA; 2005 Ecofarm Conference (PART II of transcript)

In Defense of Food: The Omnivore’s Solution

Real food--the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize as food—is being undermined by science on one side and the food industry on the other, both of whom want us focus on nutrients, good and bad, rather than actual plants, animals and fungi. The rise of “nutritionism” has vastly complicated the lives of American eaters without doing anything for our health, except possibly to make it worse. Nutritionism arose to deal with a genuine problem--the fact that the modern American diet is responsible for an epidemic of chronic diseases, from obesity and type II diabetes to heart disease and many cancers--but it has obscured the real roots of that problem and stood in the way of a solution. That solution involves putting the focus back on foods and food chains, for it turns out our personal health cannot be divorced from the health of the soil, plants, and animals that make up the food chains in which we take part. In this talk, Pollan explores what the industrialization of food and agriculture has meant for our health and happiness as eaters, and looks at the growing national movement to renovate the food system.

The Botany of Desire:
The Forgotten Power of Plants

The sweetness of apples, the beauty of tulips, the intoxication of cannabis: these domesticated species and the human desires they’ve evolved to gratify pose an intriguing question about our place in nature, which is this: Who’s really domesticating whom? For these species have surely gained as much by their association with us as we have by associating with them. By looking at our intimate relationship with a handful of everyday plants, Pollan develops a fresh perspective on the human place in evolution, one that takes us beyond the “zero-sum” relationship of Man and Nature to put us back into the reciprocal web of life on earth. He also makes a compelling case for the power of plants—and the importance of botany—in human society.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: Searching for
the Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World

All creatures are defined ecologically by how they fit into a food chain. In the case of humans, the industrialization of food has obscured this once-plain fact, to the point where most Americans are only dimly aware that their food represents their most profound engagement with the natural world. Over the past few years, Michael Pollan has conducted
a series of personal explorations of our food chain, growing a genetically modified potato, tracing an organic TV dinner from grocery freezer to farm, buying and following a steer from insemination to steak. In this talk Pollan will use these stories to tease out conclusions about what's gone wrong with the industrial food system and its implication for our health. He'll also explore some of the healthier alternatives to industrial food.

Connecting the Dots:
Health and Agricultural Policy

Sir Albert Howard, one of the earliest pioneers of sustainable agriculture, said that we ought to “treat the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal, and man as one great subject." What happens when we take that advice seriously? We begin to see how health problems such as obesity, food poisoning (including mad cow disease), heart disease, and many others are connected to the way we grow our food. We also discover that agricultural policy  has enormous implications for our health—and that current USDA policies are actively promoting the same epidemic of obesity which other branches of the government are urging us to confront.