Michael Pollan

Pollan is married to the landscape painter Judith Belzer. They met in 1974, and have been married for 22-years. They live in the Bay Area with their son, Issac.

Michael Pollan was born on February 6, 1955 into a Jewish family, and grew up in Long Island. He is the son of author and financial consultant Stephen Pollan and columnist Corky Pollan.

He received a B.A. in English from Bennington College, and an M.A. in English from Columbia University in 1981. He got a job to write for the magazine Channels, and enjoyed publishing and writing.

In 1991, Pollan’s book “Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education” was published by Atlantic Monthly Press. The book has become a manifesto for both gardeners and environmentalists, and makes man analyze his relationship with nature.

His “A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder” traces the design and construction of out-building, re-released as “A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams” a decade after.

“The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World”, he explores co-evolution, and mankind’s relationship with four plants — apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes — from the perspectives of both man and plants.

In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism.

The New York Times named his “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” one of the five best non-fiction books of the year in December 2006. The James Beard Foundation named it winner for the best food writing.

Pollan’s 2006 book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals” describes four basic ways by which man has obtained food, namely the industrial, organic, local farm method, and as a hunter-gatherer.

“In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” published in 2008, he points out that cultures that perceive food as having purposes of pleasure, identity, and sociality may end up with better health.