Louise Yang read and liked Richard's review of The Omnivore's Dilemma:

"I thought when I started this book that a review would be superfluous—after all, it was published three years ago and has been reviewed thousands of times. But the material is provocative, and some reviews on this and similar books induce yet more ...more I thought when I started this book that a review would be superfluous—after all, it was published three years ago and has been reviewed thousands of times. But the material is provocative, and some reviews on this and similar books induce yet more thinking.

There's certainly a lot to talk about when it comes to food. I suppose that has always been so, but two relatively new topics have shoved their way onto the bestsellers list. Well, perhaps "two" is too limited, but its a good if arbitrary start.

First, the human-centric angle. There are quite a few books exploring how and why today's food is so bad for us. Here the general idea is to examine how what-we-eat isn't quite what-we-should-be-eating. This discussion goes in two directions: backwards, into our evolutionary development to ask why is it we so enjoy food that isn't good for us; and currently, at our consumer "preferences": why is it our national (and, increasingly, global) diet is even less healthy than even our natural inclinations have historically made it?

The other hot topic examines the many ways in which feeding the human race has become very bad for the planet and its inhabitants, especially those we eat. Again, this can be split many ways: how simply feeding so many billions of humans taxes the planet's resources and health; how the diets of the developed world exaggerate that effect; and how the industrial food production system further exacerbates the problem.

Threaded through both of these is the ethical problem: what should an enlightened human being be eating, anyway? And if that diet includes meat, how should we treat our meat?

Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma certainly fits within the scope of all of the above, but isn't really central to any of them. In an important sense, Pollan has written a very different book, one that very gently deals with a deeper problem. One of his few failings is that he doesn't make this distinction evident enough: most readers will notice the similarities to the avalanche of other food-reform books, and not the differences.

After all, Pollan does investigate the factory farm system, and its horrors are quite evident. And he shows that even "organic" farming can be captured and compromised by the industrial paradigm.

But the title of Pollan's book hints at the difference: he isn't delivering a polemic or jeremiad; he is troubled at how the original dilemma faced by everyone has changed and sharpened in our modern world. Carnivores and herbivores don't have any options regarding what they eat. Our dilemma, in a nutshell, is that we have to choose. We have the advantage over other omnivores that our decision can be informed by culture and education; but we also have the burden that our decision has ethical and cultural consequences.


Pollan divides his book into three meals. The first is how the industrial "food system" gathers raw materials and manipulates them into "products", such as a typical McDonald's Value Meal, or a Weight Watcher's Frozen Dinner. Corn, it turns out, plays a much larger role in this process than one might expect; so much that even a meal that nominally contains no corn might still actually draw the vast majority of its original caloric energy from that heavily domesticated tropical grass. He illuminates the effects of such a factory system on the welfare of cattle, for example, or political and economic distortions induced, or the amount of petroleum required, but he doesn't come across as preaching: just informing.

(My favorite tidbid from this section was a reminder of the astonishing way corn becomes the source of so many of those other ingredients in processed food: "Natural raspberry flavor" doesn't mean the flavor came from a raspberry; it may well have been derived from corn, just not from something synthetic. Only a tiny number of additives are actually derived from petroleum—so far...)

The second meal is derived from a small farm that depends, as far as can be managed, solely on solar energy via plants. Specifically, grass plays the central and foundation role in an integrated and carefully orchestrated ecosystem of farm animals. Every "output" is transformed into an "input" elsewhere; cow manure left in a field, for instance, becomes the growth medium for insect larvae that are eaten by chickens, whose droppings then become fertilizer for yet more grass.

The bucolic atmosphere and almost complete lack of industrial inputs makes us consider this form of pastoral farming pre-modern, but the ecological management is so information-intensive that it is also post-industrial. This is clearly an approach that is better for people, for animals, and for the environment... but had its own share of problems. This kind of farm is called "Management-Intensive Grazing" operation, and the orchestration is almost overwhelming and requires such a high degree of daily commitment that it is difficult to imagine this becoming more than a niche player in the globe's food production. Furthermore, getting the food to consumers is another task that has found no easy solutions. Direct farm-to-consumer subscriptions can be found in some areas (farmers markets, CSA and the like are exciting developments, but don't easily scale up to support large populations).

The final meal described is definitely pre-modern; in fact it is an attempt to recapture a pre-industrial mode of eating. Pollan did his best to personal gather all of the ingredients for a meal, including gathering wild mushrooms, harvesting produce and fruit, and hunting wild boar. That last effort brought the omnivore's dilemma back to the fore again, as he struggled to consciously reconcile his meat eating with his liberal culture and modern critiques of the ethical treatment of animals. He reluctantly abstained from eating meat while he dealt with this, even going so far as to discuss the issue via email with Peter Singer. In the end, he concluded "What's wrong with eating animals is the practice, not the principle".

In examining the vegan choice, he points out that even there the practice can get in the way of the principle. Harvesting grain, even organic wheat, is typically done with a combine: a large machine that will frequently shred field mice and other critters that get in the way. Modern agriculture is problematic for everyone, not just liberal omnivores.


Pollan never solves the dilemma for us. None of these three approaches will solve the problems we face in our attempt to both feed billions of people and keep the planet and our consciences happy. What differentiates The Omnivore's Dilemma is how Pollan personalizes the problem. We can eat better—we almost cannot eat worse—and we must eat better. But our personal choices create our food culture, and none of these choices are simple. Unfortunately, almost all of us prefer to avert our gaze and let "the market" decide for us.
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