This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts. (And please subscribe!)

You know that friend of yours who rails against the evils of high fructose corn syrup? The one who’s obsessed with where every single morsel of their food comes from?

More than just about anyone else, writer Michael Pollan made your friend like that. But as Dan found when we met up to tape this week's episode, Michael himself isn’t like that at all.

"I think we all need to cultivate a more relaxed attitude about what we’re eating," says the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and Cooked. "You can take these concerns really too far and make yourself crazy and it becomes a new eating disorder."

This week on The Sporkful, Michael Pollan opens up about everything from how he likes to eat Cracker Jack to the time a fan caught him eating a candy bar in a gas station to which questions he wishes we'd all stop asking him and why he's not a popular dinner guest.

"I'm convinced that I don’t get invited to dinner as much as I would if I wrote on something else," he says. "Some people don’t want to cook for me -- they're scared."

Listen in to the episode to hear the full conversation -- including Michael's advice to Dan on navigating marital food disputes.

Interstitial music in this episode from Black Label Music:

- "Kenny" by Hayley Briasco

- "Simple Song" by Chris Bierden

- "Out To Lunch" by Chris Bierden

Photos: Ken Light (courtesy of Michael Pollan)