Q& A | Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan. (By Craig Herndon For The Washington Post)

Doesn't organic food often cost more?

It's a crime that only the fairly affluent in this country can afford to eat healthy food. But the problem is not that that food is so expensive. It's that industrial food is so cheap. And the real cost is being charged to the public health. If we spent more on healthier food, my guess is we could spend a lot less on health care.

So what's an ordinary supermarket shopper to do?

Shop somewhere else. Get out of the supermarket and go to farmers markets, where the food is fresh, tastes better, is more nutritious, and you know it hasn't been processed. It forces you to be a non-industrial eater, and your children learn that carrots are not industrially lathed little bullets.

But buying everything at farmers markets isn't realistic for most people. So what specific advice can you give supermarket shoppers?

Read the labels.

And don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.