Michael Pollan

Mark Bittman's New Vegan Mantra Leaves Room for Play

Let's get one thing straight: Mark Bittman is not a vegan. The first thing he does, sitting down to breakfast at a beautifully curated vegan feast while on tour to promote his mostly-vegan eating manifesto, is demand some dairy. "What do you say we send this whole vegan thing to hell and get some ... More >>

Despite Prop. 37's Defeat, the Fight for GMO Labeling Soldiers On

Proposition 37, the California initiative to label genetically modified food, was defeated last night with a 53% majority vote against the proposed labeling law. But just because this battle was lost, those behind the Yes on 37 campaign say the war is far from over. The group is focusing on the 4.3 ... More >>

Three Things I Learned When I Forced Myself to Learn About Proposition 37

By now you've probably heard that a major food fight is going down on the state ballot on Tuesday. If passed, Proposition 37 would require a label on any genetically engineered foods and food products sold in California -- an unprecedented move that could end up shaping food policy on a national lev ... More >>

Prime Your Palate for Litquake's Food Events

Every year, Litquake brings together a veritable orgy of events for writers and readers, and anyone whose soul is a little bit thirsty for some literary juice or a chance to worship at Dave Eggers' feet. This year there are some seriously stellar-sounding food events programmed into the lineup as we ... More >>

Go Back to School With Edible Schoolyard

Edible Schoolyard has teamed up with UC Berkeley to bring us the second year of Edible Education 103, a series of Tuesday night lectures about food and agriculture with a different guest lecturer each week. The lectures are moderated by Knight Professor of Journalism and general god-among-foodies, M ... More >>

The Ethicist's Challenge: Explain to Us Why We Should Eat Meat

​This weekend, Ariel Kaminer, author of the New York Times magazine's "Ethicist" column, announced one of the most interesting essay contests SFoodie has seen. "In recent years, vegetarians -- and to an even greater degree vegans, their hard-core inner circle -- have dominated the discussion ... More >>

Occupy Our Food Supply ... Today

Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Bank of America, Occupy San Francisco -- now occupy your diet, too. Today is Occupy Our Food Supply Day, a nationwide series of actions and articles hoping to raise awareness about how corporate interests have taken over the world's food supply. As Anna Moore Lappé and ... More >>

Why Is All the Talk Around the 2012 Farm Bill About Insurance?

Kent Sorenson / Shutterstock​The Farm Bill is coming! The Farm Bill is coming! It's up for renewal by September 30, 2012, which means that lobbying organizations and activists are already milling about the training fields, choosing their weapons, and preparing to ride out to battle. And according ... More >>

Get Pickled at Berkeley's Pickle Picnic!

​What: Pickle Picnic! Where: The Cultured Organic Pickle Shop When: Wed., October 21, 6-8 p.m. Cost: $15 The rundown: Remember how I said Food of the Americas was the most Berkeley event in the world? You don't? Well, anyway, boy were we wrong because this is pickle picnic is way more Ber ... More >>

Chef Dream Team Convenes for Annual Sunday Supper

CUESA​CUESA's Ninth Annual Sunday Supper When: Sunday, Oct. 2, 6-9:30 p.m. Where: 1 Ferry Building (at Embarcadero) Cost: $200, tickets here. The Rundown: Like Knights of the Round Table, CUESA's Sunday Supper brings together some of the finest in their field. Bay Area chefs will prepar ... More >>

Sugar Sues Corn Syrup for False Advertising. No Joke.

Sugar: going on the offensive. Yesterday the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles began hearing arguments over an odd lawsuit filed by a group of sugar producers against a group of producers and marketers of high-fructose corn syrup. The charge? False advertising. Big Sugar is mad that Big HFCS -- u ... More >>

WIC Turns Corner Stores Into Real Markets

Paul Lowry/Flickr There's a lot of talk about "food deserts" in food policy circles these days -- impoverished areas where residents have no access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Corner stores in poor neighborhoods tend to be one of the major sources for food, but they stock nonperishables: chips, ... More >>

Portraits of the New Food Movement

Anne Hamersky​Farm Together Now: Portraits of a New Food Movement Where: The Commonwealth Club's Gold Room, 595 Market (at Second St.) When: Thu., June 30. Networking reception starts at 5:30 p.m., program at 6. Cost: $20 general, $8 Commonwealth Club members, $7 students with valid ID. ... More >>

Sidekick: SFMOMA's Live Pop-Up Magazine Looks at Wine

​In only four issues, Pop-Up Magazine, San Francisco's quarterly live magazine, has grown so quickly that issue five is destined for the San Francisco Opera House this spring. The live performance series, which brings together writers, radio producers, artists, and filmmakers, has become such an a ... More >>

Locavore: Locally sourced food for the masses

Just Before It All Went Kablooey

Best Practices for Being Authentically Slow Food

​But is it local?​Important: Slow food doesn't mean eating Snooki (or anyone else who is "slow" mentally). Besides, that shit is definitely NOT organic. Slow Food is an eating movement that counteracts fast food and fast life, and connects us with the Earth and its Magical Bounty. Basic ... More >>

KQED's Nourish: Feel-Good Critique of the Food System

Around here, questioning where your food comes from is as reflexive as recycling, even if you lean on Safeway far more than you admit. A series starting on KQED next week drives home the question. But where Food, Inc. employed shock therapy to get you to cold-turkey factory chickens, Nourish: Foo ... More >>

Heart's Hallowen Party Promises to Let You Hide

Heart​If Heart has a brand, it's iconoclasm. No surprise, then, that the Mission wine bar is framing it's night party on Oct. 31 as the anti-Halloween. We're not exactly sure what that means, except that, crispy and hungover, your slutty Meg Whitman or sexy Michael Pollan costume all pit-stain ... More >>

SF Public Library, Hayes Valley Farm Screen Food Films This Week

​It's Michael Pollan movie week in San Francisco, with two screenings of feature-length documentaries that feature the guru's talking head:On Thursday, the San Francisco Public Library is presenting an advance screening of FRESH (watch the trailer on YouTube), which brings together some of the big ... More >>

Interview with Spoon Fed Author Kim Severson

​Kim Severson's byline is well known in the San Francisco food world. Before moving on to the New York Times, where she covers national food stories, she was at the San Francisco Chronicle, her reportage graduating from the food section to the front page. This April, Severson published Spoon Fed: ... More >>

The Humane Society and big agriculture slug it out over animal rights

Food, Inc. Whistle-Blower Coming to Bay Area for Series of Sustainability Talks

lancasterfarming.comCarole Morison.​"One more question, Mr. Pollan? Yes, thanks ― I'll make it a quick one. Shouldn't take long, I promise. So ― learning about sustainable chicken farms, pastured meat CSAs, and the horrors of industrial poultry production has been fascinating and all, but ... More >>

Save the Deli, Berkeley Edition

Harris Graber/FlickrDoes this fit in Michael Pollan's Food Rules?​Owning a deli in the Gourmet Ghetto can't be easy. Customers who 10 years ago prized your commitment to authenticity, your ingredients imported from the East Coast, and your reasonable prices are now coming back to you, waving their ... More >>

DVR Alert: Michael Pollan Chats Up Food on Oprah

PBS PressRoomTomorrow, on a very special Oprah...​Tomorrow at 4 p.m., in a food-themed episode of her show, Oprah Winfrey will host Michael Pollan, the Berkeley-based swami of sustainability, along with actress and vegan-ista Alicia Silverstone and Chipotle Mexican Grill founder Steve Ells. Th ... More >>

Simple Food

Last Night: The Cannabis Cup at Cafe Cocomo

Third Annual Cannabis CupJoseph SchellCafe CocomoTuesday, Nov. 10, 2009Better than: I don't remember.Imagine a place where everyone around you is smiling and laughing--where warm oozy chocolate waterfalls flow like water, and all the snacks are bite-sized. Oh yeah, and you're high. Really really hig ... More >>

Was That Michael Pollan Hyping Weed at Last Night's Cannabis Cup? Uh, Not Exactly

Joseph Schell (left); MichaelPollan.com (right)Koehn (left) and Pollan: Can you spot the pot advocate?​Okay, so we know from some of his writing that Michael Pollan is a fan of the wacky tobacc-y, but last night we did a serious double take when we spotted this guy manning a booth for a pot ac ... More >>

For Bookish Foodies, It's a Busy Week of Author Appearances

It's a big week for bookish San Francisco foodies interested in sustainable farming, vegetarianism, and foraging. • Tomorrow, Wendell Berry -- writer, farmer, and godfather of the organic farming movement -- appears at Herbst Theatre (401 Van Ness at McAllister) in conversation with Michael Polla ... More >>

Bay Links: Obama-rama, More Muni Fight & Michael Pollan

​Do ask, do tell: San Franciscans on Obama's promise to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." [Mission Loc@l]Crescent City man accused of threatening Obama via email. [SFist]Missed your stop? Blame Obama. [Richmond Blog]An interview with the woman who intervened in last week's Muni fight. [Muni Diaries]Pic ... More >>

DVR Alert: Ex-Times Critic Frank Bruni Reveals More Than We Want to Know

Eater NY/FlickrFrank gets frank.​Tomorrow night (that's August 19) ex-New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni will come out of several closets in his first network interview, airing on ABC's Nightline (channel 7, locally) at 11:35 p.m. He's flacking his new memoir, Born Round: The Secret ... More >>

Summer Reading That Won't Make You Stupid: Sonoma Farm Diary That Thinks Globally

In Field Days: A Year of Farming, Eating, and Drinking in California (UC Press, $24.95), Sonoma State professor Jonah Raskin writes about more than just day-to-day operations at family-run, organic Oak Hill Farm alongside Mexican immigrants, an Irish mechanic, and a French beekeeper. Raskin also des ... More >>

Michael Pollan's Book to be Required Reading at Washington State University After All

Looks like freshman at Washington State University will have to crack Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma after all. Last week we reported on the controversy that had the local food politics community ready to storm the barricades: Citing cost of both the 4,000 books and an unspecified speaker's ... More >>

Bouncer’s Highly Accurate Bar Quiz

The Doggie Bag: Today's Odds and Ends

Our favorite morsels from the food blogs for Thursday, May 21, 2009 Washington State University crossed Michael Pollan's anti-big-ag screed The Omnivore's Dilemma off its freshman required reading list, and it's not entirely clear why. The uni says it's all about money (or lack thereof), while just ... More >>

Pollan Taking his Beard Prize in Stride

Michael PollanMichael Pollan sounded nonchalant this morning when describing last night's Beard Award win. The Berkeley author and J-School prof snagged the writing award for In Defense of Food, which disses twentieth-century food science while getting all passionate about real food. "Look, it's won ... More >>

For the Fans

Too Much Good Stuff

Saplings of the City

Add these titles to your reading list

New York Press Part Three: The New York Times Magazine Food Issue

Gather Your Fiddlehead Ferns While Ye May

It's the Food, Stupid

Michael Pollan's new book exposes how "nutritionism" has ruined our diets.

Eating Right

Slow Food Nation To Contemplate Then Masticate SF This May

Slow Food Nation To Contemplate Then Masticate SF This May

Omnivorous

In 2006, San Francisco is still a marvelous place to eat (stop the presses!)

Foraging at the Forge

An Omnivore's Dilemma

Meat two ways: pricey barbecue at T-Rex, bargain Moroccan at Tajine

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