Goodreads | The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

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Anita rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

02/18/08

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Anita by: Book review on Salon.com
recommends it for: people who care about their health, animals, farmers, the environment, and humanity

Michael Pollan is a journalist, and an omnivore, curious about where the food he puts in his mouth comes from. In the book he follows four meals from the very beginning of the food chain to his plate. What he finds is that the food we put in our mouths turns out to be a big decision- a moral, political, and environmental one.

Part One- CORN
The discussion begins with CORN. Part one of this book is shocking. I knew corn was the main crop grown in America and that farmers growing it are in...more

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Dscarpella rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

05/26/08

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Dscarpella by: ketan
recommends it for: anyone who is curious how our food gets to our plates

Throughout Pollan’s excruciatingly detailed account of America’s processed eating disorder, he remains balanced and objective in his “clearheaded and sometimes heartbroken book” (Lacayo). His use of logos towers over any emotional interruption with his verifiable display of examples and his use of rational argument. Pollan does not need to editorialize because his information is solid and justifiable. Because of Pollan’s investigations, “the gate to the urban feedlot is now ajar”; ...more Throughout Pollan’s excruciatingly detailed account of America’s processed eating disorder, he remains balanced and objective in his “clearheaded and sometimes heartbroken book” (Lacayo). His use of logos towers over any emotional interruption with his verifiable display of examples and his use of rational argument. Pollan does not need to editorialize because his information is solid and justifiable. Because of Pollan’s investigations, “the gate to the urban feedlot is now ajar”; open to allow the poison to seep out of the misconceptions that supermarket pastoral has become. Pollan presented complicated issues so that we can use this information to guide us to make personalized educated choices in eating and buying
Without sounding emotionally swayed, Pollan is passionate about agronomics. “He builds arguments from a base of intensely personal reporting” (Kalins), which consequently creates empathy for the organic farmers and growers of our industrial agriculture. Ironically, Pollan has given us this informational expose in 411 pages. After his final investigation on how to prepare the perfect meal by killing and cutting every grain and strain himself, he states: It’s impossible to prepare and eat a meal quite so physically, intellectually, and emotionally costly without thinking about the incalculably larger debts we incur when we eat industrially. (Pollan 410). The sacrifice made by hunting and gathering his own food—which “scarcely an ingredient in it had ever worn a label or bar code or price tag”—“emotionally speaking, was cheering just to see how little [his] preindustrial and mostly preagricultural meal had diminished the world” (Pollan 409). “This is an important book, short of pithy and, like the word ‘food’, not simple at all… Pollan isn’t histrionic or fatalistic. He isn’t setting out to make us feel hopeless, he’s trying to show what’s wrong in order to give us the knowledge we need to fix it” (Christensen). In agreement with Christensen, Philpott states: Pollan’s analysis implies something hopeful, that by reclaiming the pleasures of the table, we can reverse much of the environmental and social wreckage we create in feeding ourselves.
Skeptic B.R. Myers, of The Atlantic Monthly asks, “Is our national eating disorder really a matter of people pacing supermarket aisles in an agony of indecision? Or do we perhaps feel too little anxiety about what we eat? Despite his choice of title, the subject does not hold Pollan’s interest for long, so readers will have to make up their own minds.” Further, there are reviewers who whined that Pollan presented us with a dilemma, however, offered no solution: “Michael Pollan, whose lively, thought- provoking writing in The Omnivore’s Dilemma masks a problem… What can people who don’t have the advantages of Pollan—who lives in Berkeley and can fly off to investigate feedlots, family- run organic farms, and reformist beef- operations—do to improve their meals and reward conscience farmers?” (Grover 32) Another reviewer wishes “Pollan would stick his neck out and be more prescriptive about how we might realistically address our national eating disorder…” claiming, “We can’t all go off the grid like Salatin, nor can we wish away two hundred years of industrialization” (Kamp 14)
The answer is in the problem: We can’t keep prescribing medicines to fix what we are intentionally destroying, but rather, we need to cast our votes by the way we buy and consume to this palliative agrarian decline. Pollan does offer a short piece of insight at the end of all his muckraking stating that, “however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we are eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world” (Pollan 411). “Pollan’s book is not about finger pointing, preaching or guilt- trips, and it’s message—what we determine to take away from it—may be secondary to the super meticulous reporting itself. Pollan is an ever- questioning, Thoreau- like observer, whose wit and omnivorous intelligence sweeps readers along a series of high adventures and forays into related science, history, and thought” (Saturday Evening Post). “His super meticulous reporting is the book’s strength…a shocking, page- turning expose” (Kamp).
“The Omnivore’s Dilemma’s exploration of the world of ‘big organics’ is

no less compelling, all the more so for it’s disabusing us some cherished illusions… I

doubt there is a book, which succeeds more than The Omnivore’s Dilemma. With it’s richness of information, eloquence of address, and integrity of moral purpose—in rendering visable, and presenting for a ‘different’ style of ethical reflection, that ‘profound engagement’ with our world which eating represents” (Margalit). Tom Philpott of Mother Earth News calls Michael Pollan’s book, “arguably the best… reminding us that the industrialized food supply has ruined people’s ability to take real pleasure in food.” Jane Black for The Washington Post argues, “What makes Pollan’s latest so engrossing is his tone: curious and patient…” claiming that, for now, we’ll have to just wait “…to see if Americans are willing to follow good advice.” Kate Christensen of The New York Post reports: Pollan lays bare with impassioned but clear- eyed intelligence at the sinister machinations of the contemporary American food industry”. “The book vaulted Pollan into the front ranks of the movement criticizing American food production” (McEnroe).
Pollan’s waist- deep yet elegant style of polemical writing forces us to

think about eating as a political choice, to ask ourselves if we are alright with what we are

voting for. Pollan doesn’t try to offer a panacea for our evil industrial agriculture, but

reveals that by simply shopping and educating ourselves in the grocery department, we

are casting votes for the future of agriculture. Enlightened eaters shall now “rise up and

start changing the western diet one meal, one garden, one family farm at a time” (Laskin).

Pollan is a revolutionary; more power to him.

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Tony rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

03/19/08

Read in March, 2008

What is your food eating? Mr. Pollan offers up this comment, and it may become the most important remark on food of the 20th century. The book covers three meals, all profoundly different. He eats fast-food from industrial cows and corn. He eats a meal from a farm that doesn't offend your sense of humanity and he gathers/hunts 'by himself' (Note: with the help of friends)

I am not sure who should read this book more. Americans should read this because I am guessing most of them have absolutel...more What is your food eating? Mr. Pollan offers up this comment, and it may become the most important remark on food of the 20th century. The book covers three meals, all profoundly different. He eats fast-food from industrial cows and corn. He eats a meal from a farm that doesn't offend your sense of humanity and he gathers/hunts 'by himself' (Note: with the help of friends)

I am not sure who should read this book more. Americans should read this because I am guessing most of them have absolutely no idea what is happening to their food...but perhaps we are already lost, corporations already own us....so maybe it should be read by Europeans...as a kind of clarion call of awareness...is this what you want your food to become?

This review is only going to focus on the contrastive first two meals: the industrially produced one verses the Polyface farm naturally delicious lovefest. For the final meal, him and some friends pretty much prepare an amazing meal from scratch, using their foresting/botanical knowledge. While it is fascinating, especially the part about how no one knows anything about mushrooms, it is just so far beyond the realm of anything you and I are going to do to be almost comical. Really....catching/growing your own bay area yeast to go with the bore you shot and the pate from the liver your friend is able to make. Does that sound like you? I thought so...so on to the crux of the book.

He starts off the typically brutal description of industrially produced US food: how corn is king, animals are being fed food they were never meant to eat while living in their own filth, and these choices were spawned to a large extend by rational choices on farm subsidies of corn (Thank you Nixon and Montisanto...think the evil firm in Michael Clayton) and the fact that we spay nitrogen due to a conscious choice of what to do with munitions works following WWII. There were several choice vignettes. When he goes to an industrial corn farm, the farmers bemoan the changes in Ag practices under Nixon which have gradually led to the dual facet of decreasing prices per bushel combined with the ever increasing (petroleum) inspired production of said corn to deal with said price deflation. Somewhere in there, the author, while discussing how many farmers now need to do something else to earn enough money to make ends meet, mentions how it may be possible to raise these petro-crops in only 50 days of labour a year. Now, if this is so (and I am not interested enough to find out from independent private research) then I do not ever again want to hear about farmers moaning about how they can't make ends meet. Save for a very few select people on the planet, most of us have to do more than 50 days of labour annually to cut it. (Again, to avoid evisceration I am only going to go off this un-footnoted comment and have no person experience on the subject.)

Against this contrast you hit the Polyface farms, run by an anti-city, Christian anti-government saviour who knows what he is doing. He has all the animals in a perfect symmetry: the cows much grass at the peak along the S-curve, followed by the chickens who break down the patties to rejuvenate the soil, followed by the....it is a staggeringly brilliant, natural and impressive system...what holds the book back in my opinion is a more brutal economic analysis of th comparative benefits.

The author and the subject guarantee that you feel disgust with the industry of food and respect for the farming of food. What is critically lacking is the 10 pages or so (20 perhaps) needed to really break down the costs. Yes, on per-dollar basis, the Polyface farm food is more expensive. Meat and chicken (he doesn't mention the eggs, pork or rabbits he also rears) cost between $ 1-2 dollars per pd. extra, a not insignificant cost. But what is needed is a more thorough analysis. Only an idiot would fail to note the staggering cost of externalities. The Polyface farm has healed the grass (the man himself claims to be a grass farmer and everything else just follows from that, so critical is this basic energy-transformational source) and uses no pollutants (while being fvcked over on meat processing policy that favours CAFOs) So industrial food is cheaper at the market, but what hidden costs make it thus? This is what is needed. Also, he describes the annual production on the 500 acre Polyface farms, but what is that relative to the alternatives? This is what keeps this book from being a 5. The Polyface farm food is much healthier and pricier at the store....but is it cheaper in the long run due to a decrease in externalities and would the farm (and theoretically others of its mindset) be able to produce enough food to feed us all? How much of a drop of, production-wise, would occur if we replicated his brilliant experiment? It is these lack of comparisons that keep this otherwise outstanding book from being a 5. I am more than happy to have a rational discuss about my food....this book just didn't quite give me enough analytical tools to have it. ...less

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Patadave rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

07/19/08

Omnivore’s Dilemma is an extraordinarily engaging work. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

Pollan sets out to answer the question “What should we have for dinner?” Along the way he considers the politics, nutrition, history, and ethics of that seemingly banal question. The first section of the book examines the food chain behind our grocery stores and fast food restaurants, what Pollan terms the “industrial” food-chain. Just exactly what is in that Taco Bell dinner? What are al...more Omnivore’s Dilemma is an extraordinarily engaging work. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

Pollan sets out to answer the question “What should we have for dinner?” Along the way he considers the politics, nutrition, history, and ethics of that seemingly banal question. The first section of the book examines the food chain behind our grocery stores and fast food restaurants, what Pollan terms the “industrial” food-chain. Just exactly what is in that Taco Bell dinner? What are all those multi-syllabic ingredients in the foods we purchase in the grocery store? And, where does all this stuff come from? To answer his question Pollan ponders what goes into making a generic McDonald’s meal. It turns out it’s mostly corn and petroleum.

Twenty percent of the oil consumed in the US goes to producing and transporting our food. Part of this consumption is the gas necessary to fuel the trucks shipping foods across the country, but oil (as well as natural gas and coal) is also used to fix the nitrogen used in synthetic fertilizers, which is then absorbed by the corn.

Corn is the foundation of the local grocery store.

“Corn is what feeds the steer that becomes the steak. Corn feeds the chicken and the pig, the turkey and the lamb, the catfish and the tilapia and, increasingly, even the salmon, a carnivore by nature that the fish farmers are reengineering to tolerate corn. The eggs are made of corn. The milk and cheese and yogurt, which once came from dairy cows that grazed on grass, now typically come from Holsteins that spend their working lives indoors tethered to machines, eating corn.”

A frozen chicken nugget from the grocery store includes modified corn starch to hold it together, corn flour in its batter, it was fried in corn oil, “the leavenings and lecithin, the mono-, di-, and triglycerides, the attractive golden coloring, and even the citric acid that keeps the nugget ‘fresh’ can all be derived from corn.” Almost all sodas and fruit drinks are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.

Economically, the cheapest calories to produce come from corn. Nutritionally, it’s the American diet of these energy-dense foods that’s contributing to the obesity epidemic.

Pollan concludes this section with a family trip to McDonald’s. There’s plenty of corn in the meal - “Of the thirty-eight ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, I counted thirteen that can be derived from corn.” And, a little bit of petroleum to make it extra delicious - “McNuggests also contain several completely synthetic ingredients, quasi-edible substances that ultimately come not from a corn or soybean field but from a petroleum refinery or chemical plant. … perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to ‘help preserve freshness.’”

The first section also includes Pollan’s purchase of a cow that is moving through the industrial food machine. So, what’s the alternative to industrial food? Pollan pursues two alternative food chains in the next two sections of Omnivore’s Dilemma. The second section is given over to organic food. Big chains like Whole Foods, and big brands like Cascadian get their fair share of criticism. After all, big organic uses just as much gas to ship their foods around the country as industrial food, and it turns out the free-range chickens almost never range free. Small organic turns out to be the most inspirational portion of the book.

Pollan spends a week at Joel Salatin’s Polyface farm learning about a radically local vision of food production. Salatin refuses to ship his food anywhere further than the local farmer’s market, and has created a complex ecology to maintain his farm. Salatin’s POV is definitely anti-urban, and it’s evident his type of farming is not a universal panacea to food problems in America. Nonetheless, we’d all be better off if there were more Polyfaces and fewer McDonald’s.

Pollan’s final food chain is personal. Every section ends with a meal. The first meal is McDonald’s. The second meal is from Joel Salatin’s organic farm. The third and final meal is comprised of food foraged or killed by Pollan himself. He hunts a pig, forages for mushrooms, grows food in his garden, and cooks a meal.

Pollan has no agenda in this book other than satisfying his curiosity. He is not a liberal scold telling people what they should and should not eat. His book is a fascinating and erudite, personal and compelling look at the way food is treated today in America. Omnivore’s Dilemma has received heaps of praise since its publication. This is all praise well-deserved. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book I could recommend so whole-heartedly....less

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Mandy rated it:

05/26/08

Read in May, 2008

Ok friends, I LOVED this book. It was a little long and it kind of meandered and changed tone in the last 1/3 but it was good all the way through. This book is about the industrial food chain and the author's adventures in trying to trace where his food comes from. He researches the 3 different processes that go into 3 types of meals: an industrially produced meal (McDonald's), an organic meal (Whole Foods) and a hunter/gatherer meal (he kills/collects everything he eats for this meal). If ...more

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Bobbi rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

10/01/07

Read in March, 2007

recommends it for: everyone

Pollan takes on fake food in a big way in Omnivore's Dilemma. If you can get through the first section on corn -- which is important and ultimately fascinating, but is so dense that many readers will give up rather than wade through it -- it is a great read. This book has already tipped off the "local food fad" almost single-handedly, although many other books and articles have followed on its heels (see my review of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, for example).
...more Pollan takes on fake food in a big way in Omnivore's Dilemma. If you can get through the first section on corn -- which is important and ultimately fascinating, but is so dense that many readers will give up rather than wade through it -- it is a great read. This book has already tipped off the "local food fad" almost single-handedly, although many other books and articles have followed on its heels (see my review of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, for example).

Pollan is a foodie to the core and he traces the origins of four meals all the way back to their basic sources. As we follow his journeys, we learn that modern-day Americans eat much more corn than we realize, to our detriment. Everything, from meat to ethanol, is made up largely (and unnaturally) from corn that is grown in ways that deplete our soils, waste our resources, enrich the few and malnourish the many.

Pollan also explains, in great detail, why it really is worth it to grow a tomato or buy one at the farmer's market (from the farmer who grew it, not from a produce dealer who has carted it across the country and is renting a stall). It turns out that we are eating a lot of food that bears no real resemblance to the food eaten a couple of generations ago, even though it may look the same. Much of our food comes down to a pile of chemicals and corn that have been smooshed together to make up a cardboard-like representation of of food. Once you've tasted a peach that really tastes like a peach, you will forever associate it with summertime and you will never again settle for a rock-hard peach that was grown on the other side of the world and bred for durability and ease of travel instead of nutrition and flavor.

His section on Joel Salatan of Polyface Farms was absolutely fascinating. He explains, animal by animal and crop by crop, how interrelated every living thing on his farm is. I actually woke my husband up to read him the section about the hogs and the corn and how they make compost and heat the barn all at once (use your imagination). By the time Salatan explains why he doesn't cut down stands of trees when this would apparently improve his farm by giving him moore room to graze his animals and/or raise vegetables, it all makes sense (the trees help control the temperature, provide shade, and prevent soil erosion -- who knew?). The author so immerses us in Salatan's thinking and practices that we perfectly understand his refusal to FedEx a steak to Pollan, as well as his refusal to raise more hogs this year (he would have to grow extra corn, which would require using more land that needs to lay fallow this year, which would require a few more chickens to make the fertilizer, which would increase the number of eggs produced but require more space for them to roam, and then he might have to cut down some trees, which could upset the whole ecosystem of the farm by allowing too much erosion of the soil...you get the picture. I would guess that Omnivore's Dilemma is largely responsible for making Salatan a cult figure in the generally disparate worlds of Slow Food devotees and Christian homeschoolers.

As one might expect from a Berkeley professor, Mr. Pollan is not a fan of Wal-Mart. However, his readers would be surprised to see how he takes on Whole Foods and large-scale organic growers and livestock operations with equal ferocity. Last year's spinach scare proved many of Pollan's points.

By the time that Mr. Pollan gets around to hunting wild boar and truffles (he's not exactly the hunting type) to prepare a gourmet meal, he had me wrapped around his finger like a piece of bacon around a fresh-grown asparagus. Michael, call me, we'll do dinner. You can cook. Actually, I suspect that if Mr. Pollan and I sat down to dinner we would eat only great food and argue a lot, but we would have a good time....less

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Lisa rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

12/09/07

bookshelves: bookclubs-secondary, nonfiction-general-nature-biography, reviewed

Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: omnivores & anyone interested in the state of agriculture in the U.S.

I was resistant to reading this book because I’m not an omnivore, and also I thought that Pollan’s book The Botany of Desire was brilliant and I suspected I would not feel as fond of this one, which is certainly true. He does write well, but I didn’t find that this book had the eloquence or elegance of the other.

The sub-title of this book could read: It’s Really Ok To Eat Dead Animals, Really It Is. Which I realize for most people it is. But eating flesh foods and other foods made fr...more I was resistant to reading this book because I’m not an omnivore, and also I thought that Pollan’s book The Botany of Desire was brilliant and I suspected I would not feel as fond of this one, which is certainly true. He does write well, but I didn’t find that this book had the eloquence or elegance of the other.

The sub-title of this book could read: It’s Really Ok To Eat Dead Animals, Really It Is. Which I realize for most people it is. But eating flesh foods and other foods made from animals such as dairy and eggs is simply what the vast majority of this book’s readers and the population as a whole do; it’s not an unique argument.

But, I loved the fungi chapter and the corn section. The chapter on mushrooms I’m sure I enjoyed so much because a close friend of mine has told stories of her rural Indiana upbringing and of the very small morel patch they have on their property. So it was really fun for me to read about the foraging/hunting of the mushrooms, including local morels. (The author lives about 30 minutes drive from me and I recognized many of the locations in the book.) The corn section (about the deliberate infusion of corn products into just about every processed food) made me determined to cut way down on the processed foods that I often eat: the one real way this book changed me, not an insignificant one.

A good part of this (apparently beloved) book seemed to me to be the author’s belabored argument that it’s perfectly fine to eat animals. His treatise looked like his attempt to avoid cognitive dissonance (his term although I was already thinking of it like that) so that he could continue to eat in peace as an omnivore, along with about 97% of the U.S. population; being omnivorous is the dominant paradigm. Anyway, his waxing poetic over the glories of killing and eating animals did not sway me. It’s interesting that Pollan continually rebuts his own arguments, but I wasn’t convinced his questioning was as honest as he wanted it to appear, as it seemed to me he already knew the answers he wanted to arrive at about being omnivorous. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he would agree with me about that.

Some of his facts and figures were off. When he talks about tens of millions of animals killed for food in the U.S. for instance; actually, the latest figures I’ve read are 11 billion every year, not including fish. Even the call to eat locally, which I usually subscribe to, is not to be so simplified. One contradictory example I can think of (this issue is not addressed in the book) is the consuming of products (chocolate, coffee, dried fruit, nuts) from the distant rainforest, which, in my opinion, is much preferable to continuing to cut down rainforest trees, and which the natives will allow if they can’t make their living from the rainforest in other ways.

I know my philosophy is shared by a relative few, but the fast food meals, the description which was intended to highlight the large amounts of corn products in all the foods, while I found that surprising and unfortunate, it was the cow and chicken parts of the meal that disturbed me the most. And, as far as the “idyllic” Polyface Farm, I truly wonder what they could do 100% plant products grown. ...less

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Sara rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

10/13/07

bookshelves: lifestyle

Read in January, 2006

recommends it for: Everyone I know

Man, this book is great. The best book I read last year, easily. Mushrooms, chicken slaughter, sustainability, french fries, soul-searching questions, it's all here. Just read it already.

Okay, if that didn't sell you, here's more info, from the review I wrote for my farm community (Stearns Farm, Framingham, MA):

The Omnivore’s Dilemma created a lot buzz since its publication in 2006, so you may have read it already. If you haven’t picked it up yet, consider checking it out. At 464 ...more Man, this book is great. The best book I read last year, easily. Mushrooms, chicken slaughter, sustainability, french fries, soul-searching questions, it's all here. Just read it already.

Okay, if that didn't sell you, here's more info, from the review I wrote for my farm community (Stearns Farm, Framingham, MA):

The Omnivore’s Dilemma created a lot buzz since its publication in 2006, so you may have read it already. If you haven’t picked it up yet, consider checking it out. At 464 pages, it is definitely on the long side, but it’s an engaging, easy read, and it puts the question “where do we get our food?” front and center in a fascinating way. Its four different sections break up the book nicely (you could read one section a month, for example, if your reading time is limited), and it is also coming out in convenient paperback form next month.

In the book, Michael Pollan traces the history and ingredients of four different meals: one from McDonald's, one from Whole Foods market, one from a small farm in Virginia, and one composed of ingredients that he gathered (and killed) on his own. The meal from McDonald’s (about 70% of which is derived from corn) allows him to take a trip down the rabbit-hole into the world of high fructose corn syrup and the massive, genetically-modified mono-farms that produce the majority of corn in this country. The Whole Foods meal is obviously a step up from this, although here Pollan explores the conundrum of eating organically if that means flying peaches in from Chile in December. This section of the book does a fine job explaining that “organic” does not necessarily mean sustainable. Next Pollan spends a week on a farm in Virginia that serves in many ways as an idyllic model for where to get your food. (Hello, Stearns!) Finally, in a section that is as much “adventure series” as it is agricultural critique, Pollan creates a gourmet meal for his friends using only items he gathered himself, including bread made with yeast collected from his backyard and sea salt procured from the Northern California coast on which he lives.

Hunting and gathering all of your own food these days may seem unfeasible, especially to create the kind of elaborate feast Pollan does. (Although Stearns provides the opportunity to get much closer to that goal). However, even if you are unable to rustle around in the woods for wild boar or visit a fire-blackened forest to pick morel mushrooms, as Pollan does, you will come away from the book re-energized with the commitment to eat locally and sustainably. Pollan may not have deliberately set out to promote CSAs such as Stearns Farm, but that is a happy side benefit of the work. He also writes sensitively and without a sense of moral superiority—it can feel unusual to read a book on this subject that doesn't make you feel bad about yourself. And yet, the information Pollan presents simply and persuasively will compel you to both thought and action, making The Omnivore’s Dilemma an excellent read and great inspiration for the next time you are out in the pick-your-own beds, gathering food for your family’s dinner.
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Joanna rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

06/05/08

bookshelves: books-on-food

Read in June, 2008

Lengthy review to come. In the meantime, let me just say---I learned a lot from this book. I also enjoyed some segments very much.

I would have done some extensive editing.

The final chapter is sublime.

OK, my real review:

I am a convenience eater. Michael Pollan's work is transforming me into a conscious eater. Two concrete changes in my behavior: I will now pay the price of a fancy mocha coffee beverage for a dozen eggs gathered from happy chickens. I will also see commer...more

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dtjunkie rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

07/15/08

I had an interesting IM conversation with a friend a few weeks ago. She had decided to try and limit the amount of processed foods she ate after reading this book. I have often made fun of people who only eat organic and books and movie about the horror of the food industry tend to have the opposite effect on me. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle made me want a hot dog and after seeing Super Size Me I really wanted a Big Mac.

However, as my friend continued to present the argument Pollan makes I deci...more I had an interesting IM conversation with a friend a few weeks ago. She had decided to try and limit the amount of processed foods she ate after reading this book. I have often made fun of people who only eat organic and books and movie about the horror of the food industry tend to have the opposite effect on me. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle made me want a hot dog and after seeing Super Size Me I really wanted a Big Mac.

However, as my friend continued to present the argument Pollan makes I decided that I at least ought to give the book a shot, especially considering the deal was that if I read the book she'd consider taking up running (convincing people to join me on my quest for healthy living through exercise seems to be a new hobby of mine). So I requested the book from the library and dove in when it arrived a few weeks later.

Pollan's book is an attempt to answer the question, "What should we have for dinner?". As he points out, this is an easy question for a koala bear, who only dines on eucalyptus leaves. However, for a human who can eat just about anything, the question proves more daunting, especially considering how far we are removed from the process of creating food these days. Pollan sets out on a journey to create and eat four meals, one produced by the Industrial food industry, one produced by Big Organic, one produced by Little Organic, and one that he hunted and gathered himself.

His section on the industrial food industry was eye opening. Basically, it appears that the majority of stuff we buy at Krogers (or whatever grocery chain you subscribe to) is made of corn. Scratch that. It's made of petroleum. See, the way it works is we feed cows corn (which makes the cows sick since they aren't made to eat corn, which makes us pump them full of antibiotics, which leads to strains of virii who are resistant to antibiotics....) that is made by using a shit load of chemical pesticides and fertilizers (made from petroleum). Which if you think about it makes ethanol hilarious. We use oil to grow corn then make ethanol from that corn for a net loss of oil. The more you look at it you see that the food industry has taken what was once a solar driven cycle and turned it into a fossil fuel cycle. Everything comes from corn. Chickens, pigs, cows, hell even salmon are being fed corn. That's why wild salmon is better for you than farmed salmon. Farmed salmon is basically... corn.

Of course the Big Organic industry turns out not much better. As Organic food gained popularity the demand made organic growers adopt the practices and methods of the industrial food industry. Thus, Big Organic is also based on the same bedrock of fossil fuels.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book is the description of the small farm (Little Organic) called Polyface in Virginia. Polyface is a small organic farm that only sells its products locally. The owner raises turkey, chickens, rabbits, cows, and pigs in a manner that is pretty close to the natural order of things. As a result, the products of the farm are healthier and tastier than their industrial counterparts as well as better for the environment. I really want to try eating this way and will check out Eatwild.com to find a local farm like Polyface.

The last section of the book has Pollan hunting and gathering for his meal and contains a nice discussion on the ethics of eating animals. I don't think the discussion made me a vegetarian (or Pollan one either), but I do think I need to discover more about what I'm eating, specifically where it comes from. I think eating meat from a place like Polyface would be a lot better than eating it from Krogers after reading this book.

So if you are looking to have your eyes opened about what exactly you are putting into your body when you pound a Big Mac, I highly recommend this book....less

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Amanda rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

07/17/08

bookshelves: buymebuymebuyme, food, nonfiction, read_summer_08

Read in July, 2008

While I want to buy this book I'm scared to.

Pollan's _The Omnivore's Dilemma_ is an informative and thoughtful reflection on food and where it comes from in our modern culture. Pollan splices journalistic accounts of his own experiences buying food, working on a farm, hunting and gathering and buying a cow with countless other sources to help credit his arguments and with historical information about food to inform us of the four meals possible in our culture: the processed, organic, grass-...more

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Tracy rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

06/26/07

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: anyone who eats

I'll never look at corn the same way again.

This book provokes a lot of thought about the origins of our food and the biological, political, social and economic implications of those origins. I liked that Pollan approached the topic journalistically, with admirably little in the way of political agenda. To structure his book, he uses the format of following the path of four finished meals from origin to plate - one McDonald's meal, one comprised of supermarket organic products, one from a &...more I'll never look at corn the same way again.

This book provokes a lot of thought about the origins of our food and the biological, political, social and economic implications of those origins. I liked that Pollan approached the topic journalistically, with admirably little in the way of political agenda. To structure his book, he uses the format of following the path of four finished meals from origin to plate - one McDonald's meal, one comprised of supermarket organic products, one from a "beyond-organic" self-sustaining farm in Virgina, and one he forages almost entirely on his own.

Pollan goes into food science labs and discovers how ubiquitous the use of corn has become in modern diets, and how corn-derived food systems are synthesized and refined into ever more variations to increase our usage and meet industrial demands for market growth. The McDonald's meal he and his family share, for example, ends up being comprised of over 70% corn or corn-fed product (from beef and milk cows fed corn silage and loaded with antibiotics when it sickens them, to corn starches used in buns and chicken nugget fillers, to the high-fructose corn syrup used to sweeten soda and milkshakes). Pollan makes a strong case for how corn and its refined offspring have contributed to the ever-expending girths of Americans in recent decades.

Next he looks at the organic market, examining the compromises that many organic producers have had to make to support the demands of national chains like Whole Foods, and what "organic" does and does not necessarily mean. He contrasts corporate organic production with a week he spends working on a farm in Virginia run by a maverick Christian/libertarian farmer who carefully manages a "beyond organic" operation of interdependent, high-yielding crops and livestock on his land. The story of how this farmer guides his farm in a sustainable, symbiotic cycle is absolutely amazing.

Lastly, Pollan goes off the grid completely in growing and foraging the means for an entire omnivorous meal - not only growing vegetables/herbs and learning how to scout for edible mushrooms, but actually learning how to hunt and shoot a wild pig in N. California (something my own husband recently did, much to our culinary benefit). The vast majority of people who eat meat will never even lay eyes on the living body of an animal they eat, let alone take responsibility for its demise; so I find a lot of honesty in Pollan's having taken that step in his exploration of the food chain.

Overall, this book rocked my world in terms of understanding our modern food chain and its impact on all of us both individually and as a society. As a result, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how I can improve both my diet and my contribution to local/organic food sources. I'm determined to find more ways to eat locally and organically, and I feel lucky to live in one of the best places to do so....less

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Patrick rated it:

(review of isbn 1594200823)

03/30/07

bookshelves: justfinished

Read in March, 2007

recommends it for: everyone

I thoroughly enjoyed The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. He's been one of my favorite writers, ever since I read A Place of My Own, some years ago. And I stumble across stories by him in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, often quite by accident, and then look at the byline to see who this talented writer is, and there's Pollan again.

The book has the distinct danger of making you annoying to your spouse/partner/children, because you'll be reading along and feel compelled to share a fa...more

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

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