Michael Pollan on "Oprah"

The first thing I ever read by Michael Pollan was an article in the New York Times Magazine in November 2002 in which he describes reading Peter Singer's vegetarian manifesto "Animal Liberation" while eating a steak. The piece goes on to consider Singer's arguments about the moral gravity of eating animals in light of the humane treatment that livestock receive on a well-run sustainable farm, specifically Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Virginia.

So I found it interesting today when I tuned in to watch his Earth Day appearance on Oprah, and heard him tell the audience that the single most important ecologically conscious dietary change they could make would be to reduce their meat consumption. The 2002 article dealt extensively with utilitarian arguments about animal welfare, but never once mentioned the utilitarian point that meat--even sustainable meat--has a much heavier ecological footprint than plant-based foods.

The discrepancy between his earlier stance and his recommendation today highlighted for me just how far we've come during the past few years in the way we think about food.