Here’s some food for thought as gleaned from a recent New York magazine interview with the “ethical-eating guru,” Micheal Pollan. But Pollan tells Adam Platt, the writer, he is distainful of highfalutin labels and is more comfortable, not surpisingly for someone who has always praised food at its simple best, with the more down to earth title of “Nature Geek. That’s really how I see myself – a nature writer who writes about this particular nature that we don’t think of as nature…Food is ecological as well as sociological…The way we eat is connected to the environment and to the health of the land.”

Other tidbits from the article follow. Pollan’s newest book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation,  will be published next week. In it, Pollan recounts how he learned from the experts in mastering cooking with the four classical elements: fire, water, air and earth.

Chipotle is a favorite fast-food restaurant: “It’s actually fresh food. Their meat is well sourced, most of it…although the portions are huge.”

What to think about when you think about snacking: “One rule somebody gave me is, if you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, you’re not really hungry.” If snack you must, try a protein-rich option: “Almonds and walnuts and other nuts have a lot of fat in them and they hold you for a very long time. Also, their fat is such that a lot of the fat is never digested in the upper-GI tract. You can’t break it down, so a lot of it simply passes through you.”

“I can’t do no bread. I love bread.” Yes!

About the new restaurant culture: “It’s gotten really decadent and way too precious. If I have to have another fourteen-course meal where I have to listen to a waiter give me a recipe before every course and interrupt my conversation with the friend I’m with or with my wife — I’m just so tired of that…”I really like restaurants that leave you alone. What satisfies me is simple food sreally well prepared – and prepared with conviction…I don’t go anywhere where I have to stand in line. I just cannot see the point of standing in line.” Totally.

And let’s hear it for Adam. When speaking to Pollan about the problem of snacking, he says: “I’ll just go over to the icebox, and I’ll just stand there looking, with my mouth agape.” Icebox?! Hey, that’s one of my words. How old is this guy?? However, I have retired “ice chest” and “Victrola” from my vocabulary.