Michael Pollan Quotes

How you eat is as important as what you eat. If I eat mindlessly while watching television, I get all of the calories and none of the pleasure. Instead, if I eat mindfully, paying attention and savoring what I'm eating, smaller portions of food can be exquisitely satisfying.

If we don't focus on when we eat - like, let's say we watch television or something - you eat much more. If you focus on the food - you smell it, you cook it - you're enjoying it already.

Since the pleasure of most foods is in the first few bites, eat one thing on your plate at a time, at least at the start of the meal when you can concentrate and enjoy the full flavors.

Never eat while doing something else, because you won't get the satisfaction from your food and you'll be more likely to overeat.

Eat as much as you like - just don't swallow it.

If I eat mindlessly while watching television, reading, or talking with someone else, I can go through an entire meal without tasting the food, without even noticing that I've been eating. The plate is empty but I didn't enjoy the food - I had all of the calories and little of the pleasure.

Eating is a necessity but a pleasure as well.

Thin people release the fork, and they chew the food with the fork on the table. They chew their food slowly. They look around at each other or the wall or a picture. They listen to the music. They sit back and take a breath. They do something other than concentrate on shoving the food into their body.

I really like the concept of, like, slowing down and savoring your food, enjoying it.

When I have dinner, I get off my phone, smell my food, and chew it well.

If you can't eat incredible food, then what's the point?

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.

If we chew every morsel of our food, in that way we become grateful, and when you are grateful, you are happy.

I'm very type-A, and many things in my life are about control and domination, but eating should be a submissive experience, where you let down your guard and enjoy the ride.

Enjoy your food, enjoy your life.

Eating a high-nutrient diet actually makes you more satisfied with less food, and actually gives the ability to enjoy food more without overeating.

If you slow it down, eat in courses, your body, mind, stomach will catch up with this full feeling and you won't eat as much.

When I ate slowly and deliberately, giving myself time to consider whether I actually wanted that next bite, I often discovered that I didn't.

I eat whatever I want. I like bread and cheese and wine, and that makes my life fun and enjoyable.

Food is intensely pleasurable, and people are afraid that if they change the way they eat, they'll stop having pleasure.

A food's value is based on how good it tastes.

Everything that has to do with food is sensuous. In the United States, however, we are eating all the time. We have a problem with obesity. And yet, we don't enjoy food that much.

We need to eat and enjoy it but control it. That's what I do now.

It is important that we relish the food we eat. If we cannot do this, but eat mechanically, our food does not do us that good it should, and we fail to be nourished and built up by it as we otherwise would be, if we could enjoy the food we take into the stomach.

I'm a hedonist when it comes to culinary delights.