Michael Pollan Quotes

I try to not eat as much sugar, but it's so hard in our American diet to do that... It's hard to completely avoid.

Processed sugar - there's nothing good about it. It's a huge, huge industry, and it's poison.

If there's one thing that we need to avoid, all of us - young, old - it's processed, refined sugar. There's nothing good about it.

Cutting sugar made the most difference to my body. It's the devil. It's addictive, and it's in so many things you wouldn't even think of. Sugar is put in sauces, breads, and yoghurts. It's not always obvious, but so many things are packed in sugar.

In the 21st century our tastes buds, our brain chemistry, our biochemistry, our hormones and our kitchens have been hijacked by the food industry.

Many of the Prego sauces - whether cheesy, chunky or light - have one feature in common: The largest ingredient, after tomatoes, is sugar. A mere half-cup of Prego Traditional, for instance, has the equivalent of more than two teaspoons of sugar: as much as two-plus Oreo cookies.

A lot of what you see in the supermarket I would argue is not really food. It's what I call edible, food-like substances.

When I eat a lot of sugar, I feel so gross. You feel so heavy, and you don't feel as energized.

It's one thing to have ice cream once in a while with your family, and quite another to eat foods on a regular basis that you don't even know are full of sugar.

The growing attention Americans are paying to what they put into their mouths has touched off a new scramble by the processed-food companies to address health concerns.

As a chef and father, it kills me that children are fed processed foods, fast food clones, foods loaded with preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup.

Most Americans live on a diet that includes processed fare that is neither fresh nor natural.

There's a lot of processed food in America and I know that can make some tourists who're used to fresh food feel sick.

The playing field is anything but level when you walk into the grocery store. So much government subsidy goes into processed foods. Even when you're well-meaning as a parent or a shopper for yourself, you can't help but be pulled toward the highly processed food.

In the hands of food manufacturers, cheese has become an 'ingredient.'

The first thing I did was give up sweet tea because I drank so much. I'd start drinking at lunchtime and wouldn't set it down until I went to bed. When you calculate how much empty calories and how much sugar I was consuming, it was staggering. So I haven't had a glass of sweet tea in three years.

Every man, woman and child consumes, on average, 43 teaspoons of sugar a day. In 13 days, that adds up to a five-pound bag of sugar.

I can't eat pure sugar. I can't have candy.

I don't know too many parents that want to feed their kids soda, but high-fructose corn syrup is cheap. The price of soda in 20 years has gone down 40 percent while the price of whole foods, fruits and vegetables, has gone up 40 percent and obesity goes up right along that curve.

Taking in too much added sugar from highly marketed sugary foods and drinks displaces healthier foods in the diet.

I try to eat food that hasn't been washed in ammonia and then packaged in the shape of breaded dinosaurs filled with cheese - even though those are very tasty. I like to eat food that can actually make it through the 20-plus feet of my small intestine.

With the Industrial Revolution, the production of food was delegated to big companies in order for women and men to be in the labour force, to come home, stick something in the oven, and eat. It became a big industry that does not have a love affair with food nor is really concerned about nurturing you or giving you the right nutrition.

You don't necessarily know you're consuming sugar when you're using store-bought salad dressing, or store-bought tomato sauce, or healthy granola bars. It's added to all these foods.

Fast food is inexpensive, convenient, and it tastes good. I'm all in favor of that. My problem is how heavily processed it is - how full of salt, fat, and sugar it is.