Co-Producer: Eric Schlosser
Eric Schlosser is an investigative journalist, best-selling author, playwright and a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. In 1998, he began working on a two-part article on the fast food industry for Rolling Stone that eventually turned into the acclaimed book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal (2001). Fast Food Nation was on The New York Times bestseller list for more than two years as well as on bestseller list in Canada, Great Britain and Japan. It has been translated into more than 20 languages. The book also became the basis for the feature film Fast Food Nation, executive-produced and co-written by Schlosser. His other writing credits include the books Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market (2003) and Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food (co-written with Charles Wilson), both of which also became New York Times bestsellers.
In 2007, Schlosser served as an executive producer of the Academy Award®-winning There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and based upon the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair. In recent years, two of Schlosser's plays have been produced in London: American (2003) at the Arcola Theatre and We the People (2007) at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. In addition to The Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone, his work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Nation and The New Yorker. He is the recipient of a National Magazine Award and a Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for his investigative reporting. Schlosser is currently at work on a book about America's prison system.
Related Links:
» Find out why the fries taste so good in this excerpt from Fast Food Nation.
» Video: In this clip from The Colbert Report, Eric Schlosser explains why he thinks people need to know where their food comes from to Stephen Colbert. (7 minutes)
» Video: In this San Francisco City Arts and Lectures talk, Schlosser is interviewed by veteran journalist Orville Schell. (34 minutes)
» Video: McDonald's debates Eric Schlosser about his reporting in Fast Food Nation on this BBC Newsnight special.
Special Consultant: Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is the author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, winner of the James Beard Award, and The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by both The New York Times and The Washington Post. The Omnivore's Dilemma also won the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award and the James Beard Award for best food writing and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A young readers' version, The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Secrets Behind What You Eat, is now available. Pollan's new book, Food Rules, was published in January 2010. (Read an excerpt.) He is also the author of The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World (2001); A Place of My Own (1997); and Second Nature (1991). In 2009, Pollan appeared in the PBS documentary The Botany of Desire. A contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan is the recipient of numerous awards, including the James Beard Award for best magazine series in 2003 and the Reuters-I.U.C.N. 2000 Global Award for Environmental Journalism.
Pollan served for many years as executive editor of Harper's magazine, and is now the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at University of California, Berkeley. His articles have been anthologized in Best American Science Writing (2004), Best American Essays (1990 and 2003) and The Norton Book of Nature Writing. Newsweek named Pollan one of the top 10 new thought leaders of the decade. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, painter Judith Belzer, and their son, Isaac.
Related Links:
» Find out what 19th century Americans' love of whiskey has to do with today's obesity epidemic in this excerpt from The Omnivore's Dilemma and get some tips for eating in this excerpt from Pollan's new book, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual.
» Video: In this clip from TED 2007, Michael Pollan asks us to see the world from a plant's-eye view. (18 minutes)
» Video: In this conversation with Bill Moyers, Michael Pollan discusses what direction the U.S. should pursue in the often-overlooked question of food policy. (approx. 20 minutes)
» Video: Michael Pollan talks with The Daily Show's Jon Stewart about his "snack-sized" new book, Food Rules. (6 minutes)