Pollan’s Wisconsin Visit Enrages Dairy Farmers

Michael Pollan’s books don’t go half as far as I’d like them to go, but they probably go about as far as they possibly can for hugely successful mainstream food writing.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been handing out his latest book, In Defense of Food, to every incoming freshman this year. Considering Wisconsin’s license plates still say “America’s Dairyland,” that means there are a lot of hugely unhappy dairy farmers nearby. And they’ll be congregating tonight at the 17,000 seat arena where Pollan will be addressing the campus. Kudos to Pollan for knowingly walking into this shitstorm.

While Pollan’s consistently hostile to veganism, and although his critiques of vegetarian eating are facile, he’s doing an amazing job of shaking up the food system sufficiently to provide some great vegan activism opportunities.

I’ve got to think that Pollan’s Madison events, taking place tonight and tomorrow, offers a sensational opportunity to pass out some vegan outreach leaflets. Email me if you live near Madison and you’d like to get involved. Link.

Update: Paula Crossfield’s written a nice piece advising farmers on how to respond to Pollan. Link.