Michael Pollan on the Importance of Cooking

Cambria Bold
Cambria Bold
Cambria Bold is the Executive Editor of Cubby, and one of Apartment Therapy Media’s first full-time editors from way back when. She was The Kitchn's founding Design and Lifestyle Editor as well as Managing Editor of Re-Nest, Apartment Therapy’s late '00s green living site. She now thinks a lot about design, kids, and designy kids' things. She lives with her two daughters and their father in St. Paul, MN.
updated May 24, 2019
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As Pollan tells Bittman, “Cooking is probably the most important thing you can do to improve your diet. What matters most is not any particular nutrient, or even any particular food: it’s the act of cooking itself.”

When you cook, Pollan says, you choose the ingredients, so the quality of the food will automatically be better. So why don’t more people cook? The “Food Channel fetishization of cooking” has made it intimidating, or people say they don’t have time.

Pollan goes on:

We do find time for activities we value, like surfing the Internet or exercising… the problem is we’re not valuing cooking enough. Who do you want cooking your food, a corporation or a human being? Cooking isn’t like fixing your car or other things it makes sense to outsource. Cooking links us to nature, it links us to our bodies. It’s too important to our well-being to outsource.

Read all of his thoughts on the importance of home cooking below, and then look for Cooked on shelves this Tuesday.

Read More → Pollan Cooks! | The New York Times

(Image: Faith Durand)

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