The talk, held at Zellerbach Hall on the Berkeley campus, was supposed to be at a smaller venue but so many people wanted to watch Pollan and Mackey go head to head that they moved it to Zellerbach. Even the Berkeley crowd still wants a good SmackDown now and then.

Unfortunately, the face-off was pretty tame. No blood, except in Mackey’s opening film on animal factory farms.

By Jessie, contributing