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The Cooking Paradox: A Conversation with Michael Pollan

Americans spend half the amount of time cooking than we did in the 1960s, and we have also defined "cooking" down to activities such as getting a pizza out of a box.

Americans spend half the amount of time cooking than we did in the 1960s, and we have also defined “cooking” down to activities such as getting a pizza out of a box.


And yet, millions of Americans are glued to watching other people cook on television. As Michael Pollan points out, we spend more time watching watching these shows than actually cooking, and Pollan calls this “the cooking paradox.” 

Pollan is the author of numerous bestsellers such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma and his most recent book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.

For over two decades, Michael has changed the way we think about what we eat, how we farm, and indeed how we interact in the broadest sense with the natural world.

Pollan chatted recently with Wendy Schmidt at The Nantucket Project, a festival of ideas on Nantucket, MA. 

Watch the video here


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