Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments.Polyface, Inc. is a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.Permaculture is a branch of ecological design, ecological engineering, and environmental design, which develops sustainable architecture and self-maintained agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems. Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biological pest control. Organic farming uses fertilizers and pesticides but excludes or strictly limits the use of manufactured (synthetic) fertilizers, pesticides (which include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides), plant growth regulators such as hormones, livestock antibiotics, food additives, genetically modified organisms, human sewage sludge, and nanomaterials.Eating Animals explores the topics of factory farming and commercial fisheries. He examines topics such as by-catch and slaughterhouse conditions, saying that Indonesian shrimp trawlers kill 26 pounds of sea creatures for every 1 pound of shrimp they collect, and that in American slaughterhouses, cows are consistently "bled, dismembered, and skinned while conscious." He also explores the health risks which pervade American factory farming, including the claims that H1N1 originated in a North Carolina factory farm, and that 98 percent of American chicken is infected with campylobacter or salmonella at the time of consumption. Foer also examines the cultural meaning of food, beginning with the experience of his own grandmother, who survived the Holocaust, with a lifelong obsession over food. He builds on and ultimately criticizes the work of Michael Pollan with our relationship to the food we eat. Finally, Foer examines humane agricultural methods and the divide between animal rights and animal welfare.