Tuesday, February 27, 2007

John Mackey vs. Michael Pollan: The Smackdown

I'm headed to UC Berkeley this evening with my dear friends Ms. L and Poet With A Day Job for the much-anticipated dialogue between John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods) and Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and a food ethicist who is an outspoken critic of Whole Foods, which is part of what he calls "Big Organic." Pollan is troubled by the negative environmental and social impact of Whole Foods and other companies who capitalize off of their progressive images while undermining local agriculture. And a whole lot of other things. He has lots of good things to say about a variety of issues including nutrition, animal treatment, and sustainable agriculture. The whole blog world seems to be abuzz today about this sold-out event, so I wanted to let those of you who aren't local or who weren't able to obtain tickets know that you can watch it for free as a webcast here, beginning at 6:50 PM (Pacific).

(Thanks to Ethicurean.com for the lowdown!)
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4 comments:

  1. Allergic Girl®9:15 PM

    i REALLY wanna hear how this showdown goes down.

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  2. WTChips2:41 PM

    I listened to the webcast last night and John Mackey is such an inspiration. I love the way he ended his Power Point with the words of Michelangelo: Criticize by Creating. John went on to say it is the duty of entrepreneurs to create the products that allow the consumer to have a choice. Then he sets up a fund to allow these entrepreneurs to create these products. This guy gets it …..
    Ric

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  3. Mike Eberhart3:23 PM

    That sounds like a wonderful event. I would have loved to hear it - I guess I can check out the webcast yet. I am a fan of Whole Foods too, so I definitely have an interest. Hope you enjoyed it Bay.

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  4. Anonymous2:54 PM

    I heard an interesting program on the radio last night (Ideas on CBC radio in Canada) about organic farming and its move into big business.

    The original organic farmers are pissed because big business does not take on all their values (local production etc). I see their point, but if big business is farming organically, then it isn't using GMOs and pesticides on a big scale, which is great as far as I'm concerned.

    Ethical treatment of workers and locally produced food is a sepererate (but also important) issue. Do you want your food organic, fair-trade, local, all three? If the massed get even one of the above, we are all ahead.

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