jump to content
In the Network: Media Co-op Dominion   Locals: HalifaxTorontoVancouverMontreal

Michael Pollan describes swine flu two years before it's news

posted by dru Geography: Earth Topics: food

June 13, 2009

Michael Pollan describes swine flu two years before it's news

Reading Michael Pollan's 2006 book The Omnivore's Dilemma. The author is, it would seem, a prophet. Or maybe just a real journalist.

Stop me when this sounds familiar:

The unnaturally rich diet of corn that undermines a steer's health fattens his flesh in a way that undermines the health of the humans who will eat it. The antibiotics these animals consume with their corn at this very moment are selecting, in their guy and wherever else in the environment they end up, for new strains of bacteria that will someday infect us and withstand the drugs we depend upon to treat that infection. We inhabit the same microbial ecosystem as the animals we eat, and whatever happens in it also happens to us.

Not a very satisfying thing to predict, but it's not like informed people didn't see it coming.


Own your media. Support the Dominion. Join the Media Co-op today.