Michael Pollan Discusses "Food, Inc."

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: Washington Unplugged

"Our food has been fundamentally transformed without us really knowing about it," Robert Kenner, producer and director of the new documentary "Food, Inc.," said on this week's installment of CBSNews.com's Web-only show "Washington Unplugged."

"The tomatoes, as Michael calls them, they're notional tomatoes," he continued. "They look the same, they're still bright red, but they no longer have the nutritional value. They've been changed."

Pollan said we've reached this point because "we've been on this quest since World War Two to make food as cheap and abundant as possible."

"It's succeeded…but it's almost succeeded too well," he continued. "It's making us fat. We have this tremendous problem with obesity and type two diabetes. And, as it turns out, cheap food has many, many hidden costs." Among them, he said, are brutalized workers and animals.

Watch the full interview below.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Click here for the rest of this week's "Washington Unplugged" -- which also includes Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley talking about health care and his angry tweets and Kennedy Corpus of Green Bay who got a note from President Obama yesterday to give to her teacher.

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
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by aChangeOfIdeas June 16, 2009 8:02 AM EDT: I'm not sure it's entirely cost. The produce at the farmer's markets around me is comparably priced, if not cheaper. I think the big factor is laziness. Too much trouble to shop around. Too much trouble to think about a recipe that involves cutting up veggies instead of just going through the drive-thru. Also, growing your own involves work. We grow about $800+ worth of produce a year, with an outlay of less than $100 up front for seeds/plants. Not everyone has the yard to do that in, but even those who do don't want to give up the time or energy to do it.; Reply to this comment


by myusername2345235-22837247045390719799734884395648 June 15, 2009 3:31 PM EDT: This is great; Reply to this comment


by PVperson2 June 14, 2009 1:28 PM EDT: Sure healthier fruits and vegetables are available to consumers, at double the price. Do you really think the average American will EVER pay the price required to eat "right", no and especially during times like these. I can just imagine cost conscience shoppers saying to themselves, "Hey, I can go to the local farmers market and pay twice as much for my tomatoes then at the AP, it'll be so much better use of my food stamps".; Reply to this comment


by boiler_tech June 13, 2009 10:33 PM EDT: Beware of ANYTHING that contains Aspartame,,, Posted by tincup356

Get you facts straight. It is nonsense to say aspartame (APM) was made for warfare. I knew the inventor. He was a researcher developing a human anti-ulcer drug. It didn't pan out for ulcers, but during his work he licked his finger while writing in his lab notebook. This was a true case of serendipity!

You're right. Diabetes, type II, has increase since the time APM came on the market. But not because of APM. Diabetes has increased due to our mass consumption of inexpensive food and poor exercise habits.; Reply to this comment


by tincup356 June 13, 2009 3:35 PM EDT: Beware of ANYTHING that contains Aspartame,,,diet drinks, artificial sweeteners, medicines,,,,,Aspartame was created for the original purpose for chemical warfare,it IS a Poison.Yet Don Rumsfeld was instrumental in getting it FDA approval without proper testing in the late 1980's, going on thirty years now they have been poisoning Americans,,,,,,Diabetes increases have skyrocketed since Aspartame was approved for use in food and drugs, recent research suggests there is a link. What easier way to kill off the population, get them sick and then break them treating them, in the end the government will end up with everything you had. We are only allowed to rent what we have while we are here on this earth,,,then the government repossess everything when we die. Right now they owe the Chinese a lot .....so they need us to die so they can have housing for the new wave of Chinese immigrants that will be allowed to move here to solve debt issues.; Reply to this comment


by estabwary June 13, 2009 3:32 PM EDT: Almost everything designed for mass production is crap. If you want some good tomatoes, try growing your own where mass production and perfection are not the goals. People need to put less value on convenience and more value on quality, if they want better food. Better things take time and effort. We do not HAVE to eat these plasticized food replicas.; Reply to this comment


by hsudul June 13, 2009 2:45 PM EDT: Welcome to neighborhood grocery where plastic
tomatoes and strawberries with green tips await you.
Nothing seems to be juicy ... a golden apricot at $2.00 ls
hard and tasteless..
Upon intense research I found only one frozen fish
without breading... Who knows whats in all that breading.
TV dinner may be remotely nutirtious, they are skimpy
and need 3 to satisfy a ahungryman..
BUt the cereal dept is where the American public is
outright robbed, Somehow far away is cereal which
can be cooked and will nourish the body but as little
is said about this baragain.... thus pulling you away from
$4.00 a box............. then again Americans want their
convience and continje to fill their baskets with the
General MIlls marketing meals/; Reply to this comment