Michael Pollan Endorses the $8 Dozen of Eggs

• After buying my $3.50 dozen from the gnarled old farmer at the Fort Greene farmer's market, I gotta say: Sorry, Pollan. $8 eggs is just silly. (He sometimes has incredible green eggs that cost a little more.)

• After buying my $3.50 dozen from the gnarled old farmer at the Fort Greene farmer's market, I gotta say: Sorry, Pollan. $8 eggs is just silly. (He sometimes has incredible green eggs that cost a little more.)

• Actually cmartineau, I don't think he is right about small farmers either. Firstly, I think that the lack of quality produce in this country is not entirely related to the fact that most of our food comes from agribusiness instead of small farms. While it is indeed true that many small farms produce excellent stand-out products (i.e., Milk Thistle comes immediately to mind) the vast majority of small farmers produce food of the same low quality as agribusiness. Take eggs, which Pollan uses as his example. The major difference between his $8/dz. eggs and the ones in Gristedes, is mostly the $6/dz. difference in price. I usually buy my eggs from Union Square, and I have even splurged for the fancy green ones, but as far as I am concerned pretty much every egg I have ever eaten in this country has been no better than mediocre. In contrast, you can buy an egg in Japan at 7/11, produced from a huge poultry company, and it will have a bright orange yolk that will be great. Milk Thistle notwithstanding, commercial milk in many other places remains far better than that from small producers here. Charoen Pokphand, Seara, Marfrig, Meiji are all huge companies, and all produce high quality products. The problem isn't the size, its the skewed combination of government subsidies, price controls, and tarrifs which makes it so profitable to grow cotton, corn and soybeans and which crowd out good food by valuing quantity over quality. Milk and cheese in the US is not of poor quality because of big dairies, but because of U.S. Dept. of Agriculture regulations which create milk cartels across the United States. Secondly, Pollan romantices the small farmer and suggests that people in the city should subsidize them by paying more than they should have to for their food in order to preserve their way of life. I certainly have nothing against farmers, but city people owe them a livlihood no more than the reverse is true. Moreover, Pollan should not assume that everybody shares his aesthetic values, and should be made to pay for them, in preserving his romantic shepards of the land.

• Actually cmartineau, I don't think he is right about small farmers either. Firstly, I think that the lack of quality produce in this country is not entirely related to the fact that most of our food comes from agribusiness instead of small farms. While it is indeed true that many small farms produce excellent stand-out products (i.e., Milk Thistle comes immediately to mind) the vast majority of small farmers produce food of the same low quality as agribusiness. Take eggs, which Pollan uses as his example. The major difference between his $8/dz. eggs and the ones in Gristedes, is mostly the $6/dz. difference in price. I usually buy my eggs from Union Square, and I have even splurged for the fancy green ones, but as far as I am concerned pretty much every egg I have ever eaten in this country has been no better than mediocre. In contrast, you can buy an egg in Japan at 7/11, produced from a huge poultry company, and it will have a bright orange yolk that will be great. Milk Thistle notwithstanding, commercial milk in many other places remains far better than that from small producers here. Charoen Pokphand, Seara, Marfrig, Meiji are all huge companies, and all produce high quality products. The problem isn't the size, its the skewed combination of government subsidies, price controls, and tarrifs which makes it so profitable to grow cotton, corn and soybeans and which crowd out good food by valuing quantity over quality. Milk and cheese in the US is not of poor quality because of big dairies, but because of U.S. Dept. of Agriculture regulations which create milk cartels across the United States. Secondly, Pollan romantices the small farmer and suggests that people in the city should subsidize them by paying more than they should have to for their food in order to preserve their way of life. I certainly have nothing against farmers, but city people owe them a livlihood no more than the reverse is true. Moreover, Pollan should not assume that everybody shares his aesthetic values, and should be made to pay for them, in preserving his romantic shepards of the land.

• Great comments so far, everyone! Surely, though, he has a point about the efforts of small farmers?

• Great comments so far, everyone! Surely, though, he has a point about the efforts of small farmers?

• Certainly its elitism, but even more so it is simple conceit. Why does he think that he knows better than the hundreds of millions of people in the United States who buy food, and the hundreds of thousands of people and organizations who grow and sell it, what the proper price of any foodstuff should be. It is simple conceit for anybody to think that they can better determine "proper" or "fair" prices than those freely bargained for by hundreds of millions of market participants. He might think that he knows better than everybody else what things should cost, and what everybody else should be willing to pay to satisfy his aesthetic preferences, but I think that is highly unlikely.

• Certainly its elitism, but even more so it is simple conceit. Why does he think that he knows better than the hundreds of millions of people in the United States who buy food, and the hundreds of thousands of people and organizations who grow and sell it, what the proper price of any foodstuff should be. It is simple conceit for anybody to think that they can better determine "proper" or "fair" prices than those freely bargained for by hundreds of millions of market participants. He might think that he knows better than everybody else what things should cost, and what everybody else should be willing to pay to satisfy his aesthetic preferences, but I think that is highly unlikely.

• Elitism. Pollan has a lot of interesting things to say, but I'd like to hear how he proposes to feed the world's mouths with $8 dozens and without the commodity corn he despises.

• Elitism. Pollan has a lot of interesting things to say, but I'd like to hear how he proposes to feed the world's mouths with $8 dozens and without the commodity corn he despises.

• I'd like to see him promote that to every household in NYC that eats eggs and see what they say about this guy.

• I'd like to see him promote that to every household in NYC that eats eggs and see what they say about this guy.

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