Michael Pollan Kicks Off Lecture and Performance Series

Daniel Cunningham was an obese pre-diabetic college dropout with little direction or focus in life until he received a copy of Michael Pollan’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

Pollan, author of four New York Times bestselling books and one of Time Magazine’s top 100 most influential people will be the first presenter for Texas Tech University’s Presidential Lecture and Performance Series. Pollan will speak at 7 p.m. Oct. 28 in the Allen Theatre.

“This book literally changed my life,” said Cunningham, now a senior environmental horticulture major at Texas Tech “After losing more than a hundred pounds, I am extremely motivated and following my passion in life. I have read all of Pollan’s books a number of times, and quote from them on a daily basis.”

Cunningham was given “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” from a stranger and has since passed on the book to someone else. His only requirement was that they promised to pass it on to someone else in hopes that other folks would be enlightened as well.

Some of Pollan's top selling books:

• “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual”— Eating doesn’t have to be so complicated. This indispensable handbook lays out a set of straightforward, memorable rules for eating wisely, one per page accompanied by a concise explanation.
• “In Defense of Food”— Food. There’s plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it? Because most of what we’re consuming today is not food, and how we’re consuming it — in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone — is not really eating. Instead of food, we’re consuming “edible foodlike substances” — no longer the products of nature but of food science. The result is what Pollan calls the American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.
• “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”— The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
• “The Botany of Desire”— In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?