Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist and professor in the field of food and agriculture, most famous for his books on food and nutrition. Born in 1955 in Long Island, New York, Pollan was raised in an academic family with a German Jewish heritage, and spent his childhood in a rural Connecticut environment. Following his childhood in Connecticut, Pollan attended Bennington College where he initially studied Political Science, deciding to move to the sunny west coast to pursue a graduate degree in English from Columbia University.

Pollan’s early career focused on writing and editing, and he has since written articles in many prominent newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times Magazine and the New York Review of Books. His first book, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education, was published in 1991 and focused on his newfound hobby of gardening, ambitiously taking on the role of farmer while living in Massachusetts. His second book, A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder, published in 1997, was an exploration of home-building set in both the real and virtual worlds.

It wasn’t until 2001 when Pollan published his first widely acclaimed book on food, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World. In the book, Pollan looks into the relationship between the human race and plants, examining the history and science of four plants and how they have been domesticated by man. His other well-known work, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), follows Pollan as he sets out to discover where his growing urban society gets its food from, exploring the complicated modern food chain that addresses human health and food politics.

Five years later with In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, Pollan laid out fundamental principles for the right way to eat. Instead of providing detailed guidelines, he encourages readers to break away from pre-packaged junk food and nutritionism, the study of how food affects health and development. His next book, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual (2009), is an illustrated collection of 64 commonsense rules to navigate a healthy and sustainable diet.

More recently, Pollan was featured in the documentary In Defense of Food (2015), based on his book of the same name, and holds a regular column in the print version of the New York Times Magazine. In the same year, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence was released, providing an exploration of Pollan’s relationship with psychedelics. His latest book, Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World was released in 2020 and examines the social, cultural, and economic influence of caffeine on the human race.

As one of the most influential authorities on food and nutrition, Michael Pollan has established himself as an authority on all topics related to food. Through his extensive research on the topic and his fascinating books, Pollan has inspired the public to adopt a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. He is currently the Director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at Stanford University and is considered one of the most influential environmental activists in the world.