In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us.  The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. MICHAEL POLLAN is the author of six previous books, including Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, all New York Times bestsellers.   Dr. David Naimon hosts.

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Dr. Naimon talks with Sandor Katz about his do-it-yourself guide to home fermentation. Katz contextualizes fermentation in terms of biological and cultural evolution, health and nutrition, and even economics.  Michael Pollan, in the foreword, describes The Art of Fermentation this way:  “The Art of Fermentation is much more than a cookbook…Sure, it tells you how to do it, but much more important, it tells you what it means, and why an act as quotidian and practical as making your own sauerkraut represents nothing less than a way of engaging with the world. Or rather, with several different worlds, each nested inside the other: the invisible world of fungi and bacteria; the community in which you live; and the industrial food system that is undermining the health of our bodies and the land. This might seem like a large claim for a crock of sauerkraut, but Sandor Katz’s signal achievement in this book is to convince you of its truth. To ferment your own food is to lodge an eloquent protest-of the senses-against the homogenization of flavors and food experiences now rolling like a great, undifferentiated lawn across the globe. It is also a declaration of independence from an economy that would much prefer we were all passive consumers of its commodities, rather than creators of unique products expressive of ourselves and the places where we live.”

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“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of—or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists—who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts.

Like all of Roach’s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.

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A botanist, medical biochemist, and self-defined “renegade scientist,” Diana Beresford-Kroeger brings together ethnobotany, horticulture, spirituality and alternative medicine to discuss how forests affect our health individually, collectively, ecologically and globally. Her books include The Global Forest and Arboretum Borealis: A Lifeline of the Planet.

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From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back.

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In THE HORMONE CURE, Harvard/MIT-trained integrative physician/scientist and board-certified gynecologist, Dr. Sara Gottfried, tells women exactly what they can do to optimize their hormones — without drugs, hormone replacement therapy, or a prescription for antidepressants and sleeping pills. Women are constantly told that physical and emotional distress are just part of being female.  They’re assured by their doctors and society, that weight gain, sleeplessness, diminished sex drive, hair loss, fatigue, depression, and wrinkles are natural symptoms of fluctuating hormone and an unavoidable part of being a woman. This information is both false and harmful. Being a woman doesn’t have to mean feeling bad and chronically overwhelmed. Hormonesdon’t have to be the enemy. In truth, there are simple, practical, and scientifically proven solutions for balancing hormones and alleviating the most common symptoms women experience.‬

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Everyone thinks of preventative medicine as the best course of action.  But is it possible that getting certain medical screenings when you are healthy, the same screenings your doctor urges you to get,  could be harmful to us?   Today’s guest Alan Cassels is here today to talk about the industry of medical screening, to parse out the good tests from the bad ones and the discuss the potential unforeseen and sometimes irrevocable consequences of getting screened prematurely.  Alan Cassels is a drug policy researcher at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and most recently the author of Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease.

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Siddhartha Mukherjee, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction for his book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.

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Today’s guest, Dr. Gary Weiner, is a naturopathic physician, licensed acupuncturist, and founder of Pearl Natural Health in downtown Portland. He joins host Dr. David Naimon to discuss natural approaches to the inflammatory bowel diseases–ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease–as well as the results he’s seen in the program he developed to treat inflammatory bowel disease patients in Portland.

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For 25 years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in the built environment.  In today’s episode host David Naimon talks with Pollan about his 2008 book  In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.  Learn why we should listen less to nutritional science when we decide what to eat,  how food is much more than a vehicle for better health,  about the coevolution of humans and their food through time, and the best rules of thumb to eat well and how to follow them.

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Medical researcher and New York Times bestselling author, Brenda Watson, shares simple, natural ways to reverse the cycle of poor heart health in her current PBS special and latest book, Heart of Perfect Health: The Startling Truths About Heart Disease and The Power You Hold to Stop It.  Learn why inflammation and infection anywhere– dental, urinary, intestinal–  can lead to an increased cardiovascular risk, why testing cholesterol is not enough to assess your risk of heart disease, and the four supplements Brenda recommends for prevention.

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Why, even as medicine improves, are we becoming less healthy? Why are more American women dying in childbirth? Why do we grow fatter the more we diet? Why have so many attempts to save the environment backfired?These are some of the questions that journalist Nathanael Johnson explores in his book “All Natural: A Skeptic’s Quest to Discover if the Natural Approach to Diet, Childbirth, Healing, and the Environment Really Keeps Us Healthier and Happier.”

Nathanael Johnson is an award-winning journalist who has written features for Harper’s, New York, Outside, and San Francisco magazines and produced stories for National Public Radio and This American Life. He studied with Michael Pollan at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

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With the incredible rise in the use of anti-depressant, anti-anxiety and ADHD medications in the last thirty years, one would think the incidence of mental illness would’ve decreased in that time.  Yet medical disability from mental illness has nearly tripled since 1987.  And in children it has increased by thirty-five fold in merely twenty years.  The literature for the short-term effects of these psychiatric medications is well-known but what about the long-term effects?  What are the outcomes for people, in terms of well-being and functionality, over the long-run?  Investigative journalist, Robert Whitaker, decides to find out in his book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.

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Mounting evidence is showing that pastured eggs, eggs from chickens eating grass and bugs outdoors, is significantly healthier for you (and the chicken).  But buying cage-free, free-range, organic eggs, despite the reassuring labels, does not mean you are getting pastured eggs.  In fact you probably aren’t.  Senior farm and food policy analyst at the Cornucopia Institute, Mark Kastel, talks about their report “Scrambled Eggs: Separating Factory Farm Egg Production from Authentic Organic Agriculture,”  how to find truly pastured eggs in your locale, and why you should.

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Dr. Gary Weiner, naturopathic physician, Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist, discusses natural ways to boost immunity during the flu season and how to treat the flu once you have it.

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Mark Bittman, New York Times food columnist and bestselling author of How to Cook Everything,  talks about his latest book, The Food Matters Cookbook: 500 Revolutionary Recipes for Better Living.

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Originally a surgeon, and now a specialist in breast problems, Dr. Love teaches at Harvard Medical School and her book is considered the bible of breast-care books.

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Richard Wrangham is professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University and curator of primate behavioral biology at the Peabody Museum.   He discusses his latest book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.

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Developmental neurobiologist, Paul H. Patterson, discusses his book Infectious Behavior: Brain-Immune Connections in Autism, Schizophrenia and Depression. 

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Dr. Peter Abaci talks about his book Take Charge of Your Pain: The Latest Research, Cutting-Edge Tools, and Alternative Treatments for Feeling Better.

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Anat Baniel talks about her book Kids Beyond Limits: The Anat Baniel Method for Awakening the Brain and Transforming the Life of Your Child with Special Needs. The Anat Baniel Method uses simple, gentle movements and focus to help children diagnosed with autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD, Cerebral Palsy or other developmental disorders.

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Dr. Joseph Pizzorno discusses the third edition of The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, a classic reference guide updated with the latest cutting-edge, science-based natural therapies.

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Fifth-generation pharmacist, Armon Neel, talks about his new book Are Your Prescriptions Killing You?: How to Prevent Dangerous Interactions, Avoid Deadly Side Effects, and Be Healthier With Fewer Drugs.

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Dr. Keivan Jinnah discusses naturopathic and Chinese medicinal approaches to Hepatitis C and overall liver health.

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Dr. Tieraona Low Dog, a medical doctor with a background as an herbalist and midwife, discusses her book The National Geographic Guide to Medicinal Herbs: The World’s Most Effective Healing Plants with Dr. Naimon.

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Charlotte Vallaeys, director of Farm and Food Policy at the Cornucopia Institute, talks about her latest report “Cereal Crimes: How “Natural” Claims Deceive Consumers and Undermine the Organic Label–A Look Down the Cereal and Granola Aisle.”

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