Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Meals Rules, and How to Change YOUR BRAIN, explores the previously uncharted place of his own kitchen in Cooked.

Cooked is now a Netflix docuseries based on the book that targets the four kinds of ‘transformations’ that occur in cooking food. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and starring Michael Pollan, Prepared teases out the links between research, lifestyle and about Prepared: A Natural History of Change the flavors we love.

In Cooked, Pollan discovers the long lasting power from the 4 traditional elements-fire, water, air, and earth-to transform the stuff of nature into delicious what to drink and eat. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to barbeque grill with fire, cook with water, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beverage.

Each section of Prepared tracks Pollan’s effort to master an individual classic formula using one of the 4 elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit get good at tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse-trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how atmosphere transforms grain and drinking water into a fragrant loaf of loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius “fermentos” (a tribe which includes brewers, mozzarella cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, however the lessons move beyond the useful to become a study of how cooking food involves us in a internet of public and ecological relationships. Cooking, most importantly, connects us.

The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon companies to procedure our meals means we consume large levels of extra fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an important connect to the organic world; and weaken our human relationships with family and friends. In fact, Prepared argues, taking back control of cooking food could be the one most important step anyone can take to help make the American food program healthier and even more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an work of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of the everyday transformations, starts the door to a far more nourishing life.