Michael J. Fox's brother-in-law was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about the importance (and economics) of buying and eating seasonal, locally-grown whole foods:
WSJ: Is eating well just an indulgence for people who can afford it?
Mr. Pollan: If you're in the supermarket buying organic versus not buying organic, you are going to spend more. But buying food at the farmer's market, if you compare it to the prices at Safeway for stuff that's in season, it actually beats the prices in my experience. People shouldn't assume that they are going to go broke at the farmer's market.
WSJ: What do you wish people here understood about their food that they don't now?
Mr. Pollan: We've been conditioned by artificially cheap food to be shocked when a box of strawberries costs $3.
But it's important to know that farmers aren't getting wealthy. When you see strawberries being sold for $1 a box, picture the kind of labor it takes to pick those strawberries and the kind of chemicals it takes to produce those kinds of strawberries without hand weeding.
Eight dollars for a dozen eggs sounds outrageous, but when you think that you can make a delicious meal from two eggs, that's $1.50. It's really not that much when we think of how we waste money in our lives.Read the full interview here.
