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

Michael Pollan (Goodreads Author)

4.17 · Rating details · 183,799 ratings · 12,892 reviews

What should we have for dinner? For omnivore's like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma: When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is What should we have for dinner? For omnivore's like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma: When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore's dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What's at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children's health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is a groundbreaking book in which one of America's most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but, according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, ath the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic> Or perhaps something we hunt, gather or grow ourselves?

To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us--industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves--from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.

The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even mortal implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore's Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.
--jacket ...more

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Hardcover, US / CAN Edition, 450 pages

Published 2006 by The Penguin Press

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Feb 03, 2008 Anita rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: people who care about their health, animals, farmers, the environment, and humanity

Recommended to Anita by: Book review on Salon.com

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 big troub ...more

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Dec 09, 2007 Lisa Vegan rated it liked it

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

Shelves: groups-buddies, philosophy, goodreads-author, 1-also-at-librarything, readbooks-male-author-or-illust, zz-3star, non-fiction, reviewed, z2007

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 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 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. ...more

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Dec 27, 2010 Ryan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: eco

I liked Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma so much that I searched goodreads reviews for reasons not to like it.

Let me explain.

Whenever a really influential book like this comes out, there's a pretty reliable pattern that follows. There's the newspaper "toast of the town" effect, followed by bland and ubiquitous morning TV interviews, and, if you're lucky, an innocuous appearance on Oprah, probably followed by a massive boost in sales. However, there is usually a fairly large group of peopl I liked Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma so much that I searched goodreads reviews for reasons not to like it.

Let me explain.

Whenever a really influential book like this comes out, there's a pretty reliable pattern that follows. There's the newspaper "toast of the town" effect, followed by bland and ubiquitous morning TV interviews, and, if you're lucky, an innocuous appearance on Oprah, probably followed by a massive boost in sales. However, there is usually a fairly large group of people absolutely pissed off by the book (or film) because it simplifies or overlooks some crucial matter or matters.

I'm aware that Pollan made it all the way to Oprah, and I didn't want to be what some call an "Oprah sheep," but I just couldn't hate The Omnivore's Dilemma no matter how hard I tried.

Pollan goes into quite a bit of detail throughout the book, but in a general way, we could say that he examines the American supermarket and notices that it seems to present food in a way that is detached from the production of food, particularly the natural processes on which food production relies. Pollan examines how food is produced and explores three "food chains" -- the industrial, the pastoral, and the personal. If food production was a spectrum, then the industrial (monoculture, feedlots, preservatives, processed foods, and international shipping) and the personal (hunter / gatherer) would be at opposing ends. Although Pollan acknowledges that a hunter/ gatherer model is an unrealistic way to feed a country, he points out that it has the benefit of connecting the eater to what we might call the ecology of food. So try to move closer to the personal, "conscious" method of eating by finding an alternative food chain.

What does this spectrum mean for us? Organic food does not rely on pesticides or antibiotics, but it is closer to industrial than the personal because it's shipped around the world. Buying food from a local farmer moves us closer to personal since we have some idea of where our food comes from. Meat eaters that have actually seen the animal they're eating die -- or how it dies -- are closer to the personal end of the spectrum. Veggie eaters that eat from the supermarket are closer to the industrial. If nothing else, I can say that I never thought of food in quite this way until I'd read this book.

In fact, there are a lot of ways that I've never thought about food until I read this book. Pollan clearly has a passion for discussing food and he also has the ability to turn what are often quite obviously contrived experiments into enjoyable reading.

I said that I was struggling to find someone that hates The Omnivore's Dilemma, but I wasn't entirely unsuccessful. My wife is sick of hearing me talk about Michael Pollan. So if you hated the book and would like to convince me that it's awful, my wife will surely thank you for your kindness.

In the meantime, I thought The Omnivore's Dilemma was fantastic. ...more

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Aug 08, 2010 Imogen rated it it was ok

Wow, it seems like a lot of people didn't notice that this kinda sucked! Weird. It read to me like he wrote The Botany of Desire, decided that that framework- a loose structure in which he can just talk alternately interesting and totally self-serving shit for a whole book- and figured he'd give it another go, but this time as his MAGNUM OPUS. And I was pretty into it, for the most part, but in a lot of the parts where he thinks he's being super even-handed, he's actually often being a boring mi Wow, it seems like a lot of people didn't notice that this kinda sucked! Weird. It read to me like he wrote The Botany of Desire, decided that that framework- a loose structure in which he can just talk alternately interesting and totally self-serving shit for a whole book- and figured he'd give it another go, but this time as his MAGNUM OPUS. And I was pretty into it, for the most part, but in a lot of the parts where he thinks he's being super even-handed, he's actually often being a boring middle-aged white liberal dude with boring tenured college professor politics. I mean, have you read the part in this book where he decides that animals shouldn't be killed, declares himself a vegetarian, gets stressed out, decides that being a vegetarian is stepping on your friends' toes, then says a bunch of total fucking nothing for twenty minutes (I listened to the audiobook- which, by the way, makes this book sound super preachy even if it isn't, because of the narrator's tone of voice) and decides that vegetarianism isn't a viable way of life? Even though, I don't know, something like a million billion people have been living that way for pretty much forever? Just admit it, Mike: you like eating meat, don't want to make the effort to stop, convinced Peter Singer to concede that, sure, if you're going to eat meat, it's better to eat meat that's been ethically raised and slaughtered (aduh), and decided that that settles it: Pete Singer said you don't have to be a vegetarian, so let's just-

OH MAN after the vegetarian part- we are about three quarters of the way in at this point- Mike decides that he's going to be a hunter, so he writes two hours (it is a trip for me to listen to a book because I do it so rarely, but I am driving across the country and it is a wide country) of the most florid, masturbatory prose I have ever had the privilege of consuming in any medium. ON and ON and ON and ON about the great natural dance, and how probably when you shoot an animal it releases THC (the active ingredient in marijuana; a cannabanoid, which is a science word!) into your brain, 'cause it sure feels like getting stoned. And the beauty of how time slows down when you look through a rifle sight, and how now he is better than people who hunt in their real lives. Thanks for that, Mike. Also thanks for your total lack of solutions for people who can't afford or don't have access to organically grown local fuckin cows that got to play dress-up whenever they wanted up until Temple Grandin killed them. Actually, thanks for your total lack of solutions to anything (besides 'get your friend to clean the pig you shoot,' SPOILER).

It's just... The Botany of Desire was pretty fun! You do better when you tell me about Johnny Appleseed, Michael Pollan, than you do when you try to tell me how to eat. Also I know you did it first but Eating Animals does a better job of explaining about how animals are tortured in american corporate agriculture. The student has become the teacher! O-oh! ...more

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Nov 07, 2008 Trevor rated it really liked it

Shelves: evolution, science, social-theory, food, psychology

I love food. I really love food. I believe it is one of the most fascinating cultural facts in our lives. I particularly love food that is taken as meals and then the words that gather about meals – not least that most beautiful word ‘sharing’. Because food is never better than when it is shared as ours.

Recently I was delighted to learn the etymology of the word ‘companion’. That has become my favourite way to describe the people I’m fond of. The word comes from Latin and means ‘with bread’ – t ...more

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Oct 13, 2007 Sara rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Everyone I know

Shelves: lifestyle

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 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.

www.outland-ish.com
Honest Tales from Overseas
...more

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Dec 13, 2007 Laura rated it it was ok

He makes some good points but in the end, it smacks of well-off white man over simplifying an incredibly complex issue. What the book has going for it is that it's a best seller, especially to the faux-liberal, over educated set and it's at least making them THINK about where their food is coming from. What I don't like though, is that it lets them off the hook as far as accountability if they just go about buying the RIGHT kind of meat. Well, all of that free range "humane" meat goes to the sam ...more

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Feb 10, 2014 Jason Koivu rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, food

After reading books like these, I'm not sure what to eat anymore.

Michael Pollan, a sort of food journalist, doesn't always give you the kind of clear-cut answers you'd like if you're reading books like this in order to learn what's healthy for your body and what's not. However, here are two important things I did learn:

#1 - Eating only one thing is not good for you in the long run.

#2 - Corn is in nearly everything we eat these days.

America grows corn. The American government pays for its farmer ...more

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Mar 30, 2007 Patrick Gabridge rated it it was amazing

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 fact a 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 fact about how industrial corn production has wormed its way into nearly every aspect of the American diet. I know my 12-year-old daughter cringes when we go the store, and I inspect the ingredients, calling out, "Yep, there's corn in this, too."

Pollan is an immensely fun writer, because he enjoys learning about this stuff, and he's skilled at taking the reader along on the journey, not just through the facts, but through feedlots, and chicken slaughtering, and mushroom hunting. He takes a close look at the industrialization of food production (which depends heavily and crazily on corn), large scale organic farming, and then at a sustainable farming operation, and then around a meal that he assembles using his hunting and gathering skills (relying heavily on the skills of others).

For our family, this book seems perfectly timed, since we've been making huge dietary changes around here since Halloween, cutting out animal products and most refined and processed foods. We were doing it for health reasons, but this books adds an entirely new level of justification. Not that Pollan is saying you should become a vegan. Not at all. He's saying that we owe it to ourselves to become more conscious about what we actually put in our mouths, and the effects that its creation is having on us, our culture, and our planet.

My only disappointment is that in the final wrap-up, he focuses on the extreme distance between the industrialized food he and his family consumes and the meal that he makes through hunting and gathering, without mentioning enough of the sustainable farm that he'd visited. (That section made me want to go out and buy some land and start farming. Tomorrow.) We spent so much time with Pollan through this book, I wanted a stronger sense of whether all this had actually managed to change his day-to-day buying and eating habits. But those are really minor points.

(Also, don't miss a terrific essay Pollan wrote for the NY Times in January, Unhappy Meals, about what we really should eat. Really, it's the answer to what was bugging me about the end of his book. It should be included as an addendum to every copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma.) ...more

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Feb 06, 2019 Gabrielle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, own-a-copy, mandatory-reading, american, reviewed, food, read-in-2019

The “national eating disorder” (which, sadly, lumps Canada in with the US of A – because while Canadians don’t quite have the same issues than our neighbors to the south do, it would be preposterous to claim we are not also affected by food-related madness, if only by proximity) Michael Pollan wrote about in this book is something that has always fascinated me. I was raised in a Franco-Italian household, so food and cooking were always big deals; it was not unknown for my mother to laugh right i The “national eating disorder” (which, sadly, lumps Canada in with the US of A – because while Canadians don’t quite have the same issues than our neighbors to the south do, it would be preposterous to claim we are not also affected by food-related madness, if only by proximity) Michael Pollan wrote about in this book is something that has always fascinated me. I was raised in a Franco-Italian household, so food and cooking were always big deals; it was not unknown for my mother to laugh right in the face of people who’d even hint that pasta was bad for you. My grandfather once told me that there are two types of people in the world: those who eat to live, and those who live to eat, and that our family belonged in the second category. When I’d visit friends and family in Europe, it was impossible not to notice that they ate stuff that would have made a lot of people at home freak out (Foie gras! Gelato! Bread with everything – even pizza!!), and yet they were generally healthy and happy – as opposed to totally neurotic about calories, fat and exercise. Oh, and the base products they cooked with there tended to be vastly better than the stuff I found at home (it has honestly crossed my mind several times to relocate to France just for the food, and every time I come back from a trip, I grunt at what passes for goat’s cheese here for weeks). Something had definitely gone awry somewhere.

I have long theorized that part of this is cultural: something about the Protestant mind frame of North America is simply averse to pleasurable activities for their own sake (eating being a highly pleasurable activity), so I often wonder if that doesn’t trigger a whole slew of neuroses when indulgent food becomes part of the conversation or appears on a table. But there’s obviously more to it than that.

Pollan’s goal was to take a close look at the human food chain: where does our food come from, how is it grown, made and how does it end up on our table? He identifies three food chains: industrial, organic and hunter-gatherer, and investigates all three in great depth, from the very beginning of its cycle to the end in order to bring a better understanding and awareness of the long chain we are part of.

The chapters on corn were disturbingly fascinating: I knew it was basically everywhere in processed food (in the form of corn syrup or as feed for a lot of animals that end up on butchers’ counters), but it is even more insidious than I had imagined, and I was stunned to learn how its agriculture was so crucial to American history (for better or worse…); it was the perfect prelude to explore American industrial farming – which was even more upsetting than I expected it to be… But it did help me make sense of a lot of things (shamefully, city slickers like myself know and understand very little about the decline of family-run farms). Like, the guy who helped create synthetic fertilizer was also the guy who developed Zyklon B? Lovely. The reason cows, pigs and chickens are given so many antibiotics and other meds is because we are totally fucking their health and life-cycles by feeding them stuff they wouldn’t naturally eat? Gross.

It is frustrating to read the section about "Big Organic" and to see a demonstration of how products from say Whole Foods, while admittedly better, is not nearly as good an option as we’d like to think. The environmental cost of getting all those veggies to you is still quite brutal. On the other hand, I was very impressed and enthused by all the chapters detailing how Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm functions (though the explanation as to why it's remarkable that Polyface pigs still have their tales was a little traumatic): this eccentric man runs a self-sustaining farm in Virginia, and every detail about it stunned me, from the clever contraptions invented by his father to let the animals graze according to their natural feeding cycles, to the way they distribute their goods locally - all of which is done without fertilizers or weird pharmaceuticals. His agricultural philosophy is probably a bit fringe, as it doesn't fit the industrial model in any way shape or form (too complex and intricate for an industry that's always trying to make things as "simple" as possible), but if this book is to be believed, the resulting products speak for themselves in terms of quality.

I expected the third part to be a bit boring, but I was surprised by how interesting his ideas about the importance of cuisine and food culture as part of human evolution were, and why the lack of strong culinary traditions in America makes people especially susceptible to weird fad diets (see rant in the first paragraph). Also, mushrooms are really fascinating little weird things, aren't they?

It's no secret that Pollan is also pro-meat, which clearly ruffles some feathers. But he is careful to look at both sides of the medal, to make sure readers understand that there are plenty of morally ambiguous issues to wrestle with on both sides. I think with issues like this it is crucial to have a lucid and balanced view of the situation, and I really appreciate that he isn't trying to convert anyone to any specific way of thinking.

A rare feat for a non-fiction book: “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is engrossing! Once picked up, it is difficult to put down, and the information to be found in it is often fascinating (sometimes morbidly so, but what can you do). I also feel a well-researched and engaging book like this can potentially do more to inspire changes in one’s attitude towards their food choices than a bunch of vegans yelling at you about animal cruelty. Pollan is not trying to convince anyone to do anything, but he wants you to be lucid about the farm-to-table process so you can then take this info and make up your mind on your own, and I appreciate that approach a lot.

The growing subculture of urban farming and gardening, local-vores and people being more mindful of the impacts of their dietary and purchasing choices is fantastic, but it seems a bit unrealistic to expect that it is enough to break the monopoly of corn and soybeans. Supermarkets can’t all deal with small and local growers if they want to stay in business, and not everyone can make the trek to the nearest sustainable farm every week (though after reading this, I am investigating options for getting weekly local farm baskets delivered to my home). There is clearly no quick fix to this clusterfuck at the moment. Perhaps the best thing to do is to change habits little bit by little bit: I’d like to think that voting with our wallets will eventually chip away at the system, but that might be my (inexplicably stubborn) optimistic streak speaking.

(An economic angle that is not touched on at all is that some people simply can’t afford anything else than the corn-laden stuff that big food corps want to shove down their throats: while I’m sure some people could make more of an effort, others literally can’t, and as long as they can’t make ends meet, it might not be possible to convince them to renounce the 1$ burger deals… But that’s outside of Mr. Pollan’s scope, I’m afraid.)

Obviously, I loved this book and it gave me a lot to think about - but to be honest, Pollan was preaching to the choir with me a little bit: I happen to love cooking, I make most of my meals from scratch (which has had the unfortunate side effect that I often get disappointed by restaurant food, which I feel I could have improved on had I made it at home) and I pay close attention to the ingredients I buy; this removes a lot of the worst processed stuff from my equation, but not everyone has the patience or inclination to do that – and big food corps know and exploit that as much as they can... If you care about what you eat, this is a very interesting, if somewhat depressing book that I recommend to everyone (if you aren’t going to read it, then at least try to buy free-range eggs when you have the option). I wish I had read it years ago. ...more

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Feb 07, 2010 Eric_W rated it really liked it

Shelves: current-affairs, economics

Update 5/23/2010 Terrific piece by Michael Pollan in the NYRB June 10, 2010, "The Food Movement, Rising" in which he reviews five books: Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal, Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities, All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?, The Taste for Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society, Eating Animals

I am beginning to wallow and bask in the mire of food politics, subject of Pollan's piece. It's interesting to read the comments secti ...more

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Dec 05, 2016 Matthew Quann rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Readers curious about what's on their plate

Recommended to Matthew by: Christy Bacque

Shelves: favourites, science, audiobooks

The Omnivore's Dilemma is definitely worth your thyme!

Have you ever thought about where that burger came from?

How about the diet of your store-bought salmon?

Are you just tired about hearing about the exhaustive origins of your food at every fancy restaurant?

Do you wish your hipster friends would stop trying to get you to forage for mushrooms?

Then I've got the book for you!

I'd been taking down the audiobook of Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals intermittently for m ...more

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Nov 09, 2017 Elle (ellexamines) rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: z-read2015, 4-star, literary-fiction

remember when this book, written by a proud meat-eater, accidentally made me a vegetarian?

Okay, but seriously, I'd recommend giving this a read. Give the teen version a read if you really can't take a 450-page nonfiction book. Either way, I think everyone needs to know exactly how the food industry works. And no, it's not advocating for you to become a vegetarian - it's simply showing truths. The lack of attempt to guilt readership is honestly what stands out about this book. By showing reality ...more

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Nov 08, 2008 Richard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, environment, food, read-these-reviews-first

~~Update: The Wilson Quarterly provides a very nice slideshow of Polyface Farm, in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, which plays a key role in Pollan's examination of sustainable agriculture.~~

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

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Jan 13, 2013 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, 21st-century, american, non-fiction

I am a little late to the table with Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma but it is just as relevant now, if not more so, than when it was first published in 2006. The work deserves a permanent place on everybody's bookshelf.

Having been raised on a steady diet of good food as well as Diet For A Small Planet, (the original) Mother Earth News and Harrowsmith I felt confident that I was aware of the pitfalls of modern food production. But, as aware as I was, and as informed as I try to stay, my ...more

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Sep 24, 2009 Gendou rated it did not like it

Shelves: non-fiction

Michael Pollan is anti-science.

He blames scientists for the misappropriation of scientific language in advertising. He touts folk wisdom.

I saw him at a book reading and asked him why he is critical of science. He said the science is too easy to abuse, so it should just be ignored.

This is horrible advice. Ignorance doesn't solve anything.
It leaves people vulnerable to those who would mislead and deceive them.

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Oct 30, 2019 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it

Shelves: united-states, 21th-century, non-fiction, political, health, science, history

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a nonfiction book written by American author Michael Pollan published in 2006. In the book, Pollan asks the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. As omnivores, the most unselective eaters, humans are faced with a wide variety of food choices, resulting in a dilemma. Pollan suggests that, prior to modern food preservation and transportat The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a nonfiction book written by American author Michael Pollan published in 2006. In the book, Pollan asks the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. As omnivores, the most unselective eaters, humans are faced with a wide variety of food choices, resulting in a dilemma. Pollan suggests that, prior to modern food preservation and transportation technologies, this particular dilemma was resolved primarily through cultural influences.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سی و یکم ماه اکتبر سال 2017 میلادی
عنوان: معضل جانور همه‌چیزخوار؛ نویسنده: مارک پولان‏‫ (پولن)؛ مترجم: آرش حسینیان؛ مشهد: نشر تلنگر، ‏‫1395؛ در یک جلد؛ ‬‬ شابک: 9786009660230؛ موضوع: اولویتهای غذایی از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 21 م

در این کتاب، «پولان» سرراست به سراغِ این پرسش می‌روند، که ما چه چیزی باید بخوریم. انسان (همانند سایر همه‌ چیز خواران) به عنوان یک همه‌ چیز خوار، که عمدتاً گزینشی موادِ غذایی را مصرف نمی‌کند، با طیف گسترده‌ ای از گزینشهای غذایی روبروست، و همین امکان گزینش است، که تصمیم گیری را برای او تبدیل به یک معضل می‌کند. «پولان» نشان می‌دهد، که پیش از به میدان آمدنِ فناوری‌های امروزیِ نگهداری و تبدیل غذا، این مشکل تا حد بسیاری - عمدتاً از راه نفوذ فرهنگی - حل شده بود. اما فناوری‌های مدرن، از راه در دسترس قرار دادنِ غذاهایی که تا پیش از این، محدود به فصل یا منطقه ی معینی بود، رابطه ی بین مواد غذایی و جامعه، که زمانی توسط فرهنگ تنظیم می‌شد، اکنون دچار سردرگمی ست. برای یادگیریِ بیشتر در موردِ این گزینشها، «پولان» به پیگیری هر یک از زنجیره‌ های غذایی می‌پردازند، که ما را زنده نگاه داشته است: غذای صنعتی، غذای ارگانیگ، و غذایی که برای خود گردآوری می‌کنیم. «پولان» این داستان را از آغازِ فرآوری این مواد غذایی، تا محصولِ نهایی دنبال می‌کند، و در این بین نقدی نیز از شیوهٔ تغذیه ی آمریکایی به دست می‌دهد. نقل نمونه متن از کتاب: «همانند اکثر دیگر موجودات خون‌گرم، انسان طوری تکامل یافته تا مواد غذایی پر انرژی را ترجیح دهد، این موضوع در علاقه‌ ی ما به چیزهای شیرین قابل مشاهده است و اکثر پستانداران نیز در این ویژگی با ما مشترکند. ما تکامل یافته‌ ایم تا مزه‌ ی قند و چربی (هم از نظر بافت و هم از نظر مزه) را ترجیح دهیم زیرا قندها و چربی‌ها دارای بیشترین انرژی در ازای هر لقمه هستند. اما نکته اینجاست که در طبیعت- یعنی در مواد غذایی کامل- ما به ندرت با این حجم از قند و چربی که امروز در غذاهای فرآوری‌شده چپانده می‌شود رویارو می‌شویم: شما در هیچ‌ کجا میوه‌ ای پیدا نمی‌کنید که به اندازه‌ ی نوشابه فروکتوز داشته باشد، یا تکه‌ گوشتی از یک حیوان که به اندازه‌ ی یک ناگت مرغ چربی داشته باشد.» حالا می‌توان فهمید چرا مواد غذایی فرآوری‌ شده قادر است به این خوبی مردم را به خوردن مقدار هرچه بیشتر ترغیب کنند. «..تحقیقات انجام‌ شده بر روی جانوران این موضوع را به خوبی نشان داده است: وقتی به موش‌های صحرایی محلول‌هایی از ساکروز(شکر) خالص یا چربی خالصِ خوک ارائه می‌شد- یعنی چیزهایی که به ندرت در طبیعت به این شکل یافت می‌شوند – آن‌ها آنقدر به خوردن ادامه می‌دادند که بیمار می‌شدند…» حال انسان را در برابر فست‌ فودهای فراوان تصور کنید: «…شاید فکر کنید مردم به محض اینکه احساس سیری می‌کردند دست از خوردن و نوشیدن این وعده‌ های غذایی غول‌آسا می‌کشیدند. اما معلوم شد گرسنگی به این شکل عمل نمی‌کند. محققان نشان داده‌ اند آدم‌ها و حیوانات زمانی که با وعده‌ های بزرگ غذایی روبرو می‌شوند تا سی درصد بیشتر از مواقع دیگر غذا میخورند از قرار معلوم، اشتهای انسان به شکل تعجب‌ برانگیزی انعطاف پذیر است، و این موضوع از نظر تکاملی به خوبی قابل‌ فهم است: زیرا این برای نیاکان شکارچی-گردآورنده‌ ی ما واجب بوده تا هرجا که امکانش فراهم می‌آمده زیاد بخورند و به این شکل، برای مواجهه با قحطی‌های آینده مقداری انرژی در قالب چربی ذخیره کنند…»؛‬ پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Jan 31, 2014 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: foodie-lit, history

(3.5) I made the mistake of reading this a decade after its publication, which means I already knew most of its facts about industrialized farming and the insidiousness of processed foods, especially high-fructose corn syrup. I found Part I to be overly detailed and one-note, constantly harping on about corn. The book gets better as it goes on, though, with Pollan doing field research at Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm in Virginia to compare large-scale organic agriculture with more sustainable gra ...more

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Jul 20, 2008 Rashaan rated it liked it

Shelves: academics-textbooks-pedagogy

A wise man recently told me, "Capitalism is here to stay." With that in mind, Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma is a feel good guide to consumerism at its most sustainable, organic, locally grown, and ultimately high-end. Yes, this is an eye-opening read that will, at first, make you want to stop eating all together then compel you to grab a sturdy pair of boots you can kick around in, throw on some clothes that will certainly get dirty, if not bloody, and step into the splendors of the na A wise man recently told me, "Capitalism is here to stay." With that in mind, Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma is a feel good guide to consumerism at its most sustainable, organic, locally grown, and ultimately high-end. Yes, this is an eye-opening read that will, at first, make you want to stop eating all together then compel you to grab a sturdy pair of boots you can kick around in, throw on some clothes that will certainly get dirty, if not bloody, and step into the splendors of the natural world. Pollan leads us on an epicurean journey that most of us could take only through the guiles of his literary skills and a comfortable armchair. We dredge through the horrors of industrial farming, contemplate over the simplicity of small, sustainable growers, and track through the forests of Northern California hunting wild boar and foraging for chanterelles. What we discover on his trek for the "Perfect Meal" is no real surprise to anyone who pays attention to the news. Americans are squeezed tightly between the behemoth corporate Charybdis that's killing us with corn-fed livestock and wreaking havoc across the country, spilling into our oceans. Then there's Scylla to our left, the over-priced, just beyond our reach, pure and golden harvest of sustainable, organic, locally grown food. However, unless you live in Northern California--and Pollan does!-- or one of the few corners of the U.S. where you can easily access this food on a weekly basis without the guilt of carbon footprints, or have the property to grow for yourself--ahem! subprime mortgage crisis, you'll just have to imagine the good life and take Pollan's word for it.

Pollan seems to willfully neglect the chasm between the haves (those who can waltz into Chez Panisse, meet with Alice Waters, and enjoy fresh goat cheese and endive) and the vast amount of have-nots, who demand and therefore fuel our fast food nation. In one chapter Pollan indulges in the quintessential American family experience of ordering 2 Big Macs, super-sized fries, and a Happy Meal. He queasily downs the over-processed, cholesterol clogging feed with his family in the comfort and convenience of his convertible car. What he fails to recognize is that people do this not necessarily because its fun, but if we're treated as "Human Resources" we will act like Human Resources. Just pull onto your nearby freeway, and you'll see for yourself. It's not hard to spot any nameless driver passing by, cheeseburger or breakfast burrito in one hand, steering wheel in the other. For most people, eating is not a ritual to be shared with the family and support local businesses. Eating is simply re-fueling; something workers or resources do on their way to or from work. Expressways as feedlots is by no means acceptable, but it is the state of our society, or at least a stratum and economic phenomenon that Pollan has decidedly left out.

Pollan means well and we certainly can't go on eating the same food in the same way. Lest we keep pumping money into a health and food system, which in turn pumps our television with commercials that in one minute entice us with grease-laden, over-processed meat to clog our hearts and arteries. Then the next minute another commercial urges us to get hooked on Lipitor or Lopressor, which we probably wouldn't need if we hadn't eaten those cheeseburgers in the first place. We also can't ignore that the cost of our appetites is speedily deteriorating the Elysian fields that made us a First World Super power.

Capitalism is here to stay, and consumers need to be informed--should be informed, about what we put in our bodies and how we feed our children. We need to start paying the real cost of food up front instead of getting hit with the hidden costs through doctor's bills and E Coli recalls. Still, Pollan's feast is difficult to swallow, much less nearly impossible to sit down to and really enjoy because he has an expense account and two years to scour the East and West Coasts for his meal. The Omnivore's Dilemma is perilous indeed. But I can't help wonder who exactly is this omnivore that Pollan's referring to? Poring over his book, I learn his omnivore has time to hunt for morels, knows how to make a souffle, and has two weeks to spare to arrange a dinner party for twelve guests among the bountiful gardens of Berkeley, California. Pollan's omnivore's dilemma comes down to what to eat and how to eat it when you have the time and means to contemplate. That's all very well and good, but the rest of us "omnivores" are still over-worked, under-nourished, and starving.
...more

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Nov 05, 2008 dara rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2010, reviewed

I had an idea of where this book was headed before I even read it--eat organic, local produce, and choose grass-fed meat over factory farm meat. I knew from a quote in Eating Animals that Pollan eventually dismisses vegetarianism as a decision not grounded in reality. What I didn't expect was for him to reach that conclusion so quickly and without so much as visiting a slaughterhouse.

Instead he visits Polyface farms, slaughters a few chickens in a manner far more humane than the fate met by the I had an idea of where this book was headed before I even read it--eat organic, local produce, and choose grass-fed meat over factory farm meat. I knew from a quote in Eating Animals that Pollan eventually dismisses vegetarianism as a decision not grounded in reality. What I didn't expect was for him to reach that conclusion so quickly and without so much as visiting a slaughterhouse.

Instead he visits Polyface farms, slaughters a few chickens in a manner far more humane than the fate met by the chickens sold in the supermarkets. He then hunts a wild pig, and feels good about eating meat again. His hunting expedition takes up far bigger chunk of the book than the measly slim chapter on the ethics of eating animals.

The problem I have with this is that his two experiences do not represent meat consumption as the majority of Americans know it today: it does not come from farms as sustainable as Polyface farms--and even such a farm currently operates below its own ideals since it is not allowed to slaughter any of its own animals except chickens--nor is it a product of "respectful" hunting.* With the latter, Pollan admits that it is not feasible to hunt for our food anyway because there are too many of "us" and too few of "them"--wild animals.

This book should be titled Michael Pollan's Dilemma since it does little to address "The Omnivore's Dilemma" once he completely forgoes examining the main sources of American meat--factory farming--and instead focuses on two exceptions to the rule.

Before starting this book, I knew I wasn't going to agree with Pollan's conclusion, but I did at least expect that its role of raising food awareness would still allow me to recommend it to others. It had a promising start. The chapters on corn and organics are interesting. I was already aware of the abundance of food in the American diet, but the information of how corn adapted was rather new to me. The chapters on organic and local produce leave me with more thinking and researching to do before I can decide how to best adapt my shopping habits. However, I fear that the idealization of hunting and "happy meat" overshadows any other message in the book. People look for justification to continue to eat meat--and Pollan provides them with this by accepting these exceptions, and not even seriously entertaining the alternative of abstaining from animal products altogether.

If this book does empower people to make more informed decisions, then I'm glad for it, but personally, I had a more positive opinion of Pollan from his contribution to Food, Inc. and various interviews than I did after reading this book.

* After his hunting expeditions, Pollan joins the rank of writers who try to make hiding in a bush and pulling a trigger seem poetic. Why anyone would feel pride over shooting a pig is beyond my understanding. It's not as if he's John Locke stranded on an island with only his knives and his instincts. He is more at risk gathering mushrooms. Pollan's account tries to convince the reader of a reverence the hunter feels for his prey, but growing up in a rural area, surrounded by hunters (and even being kin to them), I've yet to be convinced that American hunters feel much more than the thrill of killing and of course, having bragging rights and (of course) their stories to tell.
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Jan 30, 2008 Stacie rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: People who eat food

Shelves: non-fiction, borrowed

From the very beginning, Omnivore’s Dilemma, it had me thinking a lot about my childhood. I grew up on my grandparents’ farm in MN, where we had draft horses, cows, chickens, a garden filled with vegetables, apple trees and rows upon rows of corn. I learned how to take an ear off the stalk at a very young age – probably around the same time that I learned how to bale hay – because across the farm from the rows of corn, we also had a field of alfalfa and wheat. While my grandpa grew corn to sell From the very beginning, Omnivore’s Dilemma, it had me thinking a lot about my childhood. I grew up on my grandparents’ farm in MN, where we had draft horses, cows, chickens, a garden filled with vegetables, apple trees and rows upon rows of corn. I learned how to take an ear off the stalk at a very young age – probably around the same time that I learned how to bale hay – because across the farm from the rows of corn, we also had a field of alfalfa and wheat. While my grandpa grew corn to sell to buyers like Blaney and Stauffer, we didn’t feed the corn to our animals – they received baled hay of alfalfa and wheat, or at the grass in the pasture they roamed every day. I always figured it was because my grandpa didn’t want our animals eating his potential profits, but after reading OD, I wonder. Unfortunately my grandparents are no longer around to ask.

What I sometimes think is ironic, is that while there are over 60 of us, not one of us stayed on the farm, even though the farm never really left us.

In my family, we are gardeners – whether we are tending a flower garden or a vegetable garden – we are growing some of the food that will be presented at our tables. Hunting was always a big thing in my family as well. My grandfather taught his children and grandchildren at an early age how to shoot a gun, but never expected anyone (I am not a hunter, but know how to shoot a gun) to hunt if they didn’t want to. What he did teach us was that you ate what you killed. Hunting and fishing (another thing we did a lot of) was not a sport, it was a way of life – it was a way to feed our family.

While I liked this book for the memories of childhood lessons it conjured for me, it also helped to remind me of my ideals around food. Ideals that have become lax of late. One example: I made all of my daughter’s food when she was a baby. She did not partake in any pre-made food, and was a vegetarian until she was about two years old. I am not sure when my desire to feed her naturally ended, but now she eats processed food when I feel busy – processed food that I sometimes cannot pronounce the ingredients much less figure out where it came from. With many things (I am looking at your Twinkies) we have a rule that if you can’t pronounce it you don’t eat it, but this goes out the window when I am too busy to make a homemade meal.

Pollan, without ever preaching, without ever scolding, reminds the reader that we owe it to ourselves and to our families to know where are food is coming from. I felt this was a very well written book – both in its content and writing. It is a book that will make you stop and think about what you are putting in your mouth.

If you eat, you should read this book.
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May 09, 2007 Tracy Rhodes rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone who eats

Shelves: nonfiction

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 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. ...more

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Oct 13, 2017 Kavita rated it it was amazing

Shelves: usa, food

Michael Pollan is a food activist, trying to get people to dump fast food and industrial food, and eat healthier. I first came across him in a documentary called Cooked, and I loved the way he talked about fresh food. Eating (and cooking, to some extent) is a passion with me, so I was hooked. I loved the documentary, and I expected to love this book. And I did!

The main subject of the book is how maize (or corn) displaced all other crops in the US. Because it offers a better return for money for Michael Pollan is a food activist, trying to get people to dump fast food and industrial food, and eat healthier. I first came across him in a documentary called Cooked, and I loved the way he talked about fresh food. Eating (and cooking, to some extent) is a passion with me, so I was hooked. I loved the documentary, and I expected to love this book. And I did!

The main subject of the book is how maize (or corn) displaced all other crops in the US. Because it offers a better return for money for the big agrobusinesses, this plant is often preferred by farmers, who find out only too late that this choice has led them down the path of poverty. Industrial farming also leads to environmental disasters, ruining the land, as well as the surrounding water bodies, for future generations.

Pollan also goes into the meat processing industry, and we get to see the sorry state of the cows. Their feed is unhealthy and unnatural, and does not allow them to grow organically. They are kept in overcrowded conditions, standing in their own shit for days on end. The animals are not even allowed a glimpse of the outside world, and even have to engage in forced cannibalism, something not natural for cows. All this is not only terrible for the animals, but their meat also ends up being very unhealthy for consumers. Pollan also talks about the chicken industry, which faces similar issues. Pollan even has issues with industrial organic products, because of the fact that the criteria for labelling anything organic is kept low to help big companies make money.

As an alternative, Pollan describes family-run farm businesses, which incorporate a healthy and full life for the animals before they are slaughtered for meat. The vegetables and fruits are also fresh. The variety of crops and meat means that these farms are also better for the environment overall. The extra money spent would be well-worth the benefits. How accessible such food is for everyone in the US is however not explained.

I think this is a pretty comprehensive look at the food industry in the US, and the impact it has on Americans and the rest of the world. But the best part of the book is when Pollen himself goes out to hunt, gather, and cook his own food! I don't think I will be doing that any time soon, though! ...more

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Jan 30, 2019 Juliette D. rated it really liked it

I became vegetarian when I was 6 or 7, though I was thrilled while reading the hunting part! The author narrated his experience in hunting so marvellously that I got shocked and questioned myself: do I enjoy it, seriously?! I was also amazed by how quirky can be a mushroom forager! Want to meet one of them!

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Jan 26, 2008 Mandy Nelson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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 you d 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 you don't have time to read it all, I recommend Parts I and II. It is truly thought provoking.

I've always enjoyed driving through the midwest and checking out all the cornfields. They seem so pastoral and old-fashioned and wholesome. Turns out this is not so true. From what Michael Pollan writes, corn is actually a freak of nature. It probably started as a genetic mutation from grass somewhere in South America. Corn actually shouldn't be a prosperous species but it has been helped along immensely by human hands. The tassle at the top of the stalk is the male reproductive organ and the cob is the female reproductive part. Since the cob is sheated in so many layers there is little chance that the tassle's fruit can get into the cob to start the reproduction process. Somehow it worked out a long time ago and humans figured out how to grow corn. The maize of South America gave way to our current industrialized food system that relies tremendously on mass produced and genetically modified corn.

When I hear this I think- "Hmm, we eat a lot of corn-based products, what's the big deal?". Here are the reasons why this is a big deal,

1. Corn is a cheap raw material that can be turned into lots of different "foods". Industrial farms feed cattle and chickens corn because it is cheaper to store a bunch of cattle or chickens in a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) rather than letting them roam on a pasture and eat a natural diet of grass and insects (for the chickens).

2. Because chickens and cows have not evolved to eat corn, they get sick. In order to prevent them getting sick, they are given anti-biotics.

3. Corn is also used because it will fatten up the cows and chicken more quickly, which then allows the industry to kill and sell and profit sooner.

4. Industrial-sized farms use pesticides and fertilizer to grow their crops which pollute the land. The extra synthetic nitrogen that is not used up by the crop either evaporates and falls as acid rain (contributes to global warming), or it sinks down into the water table, or it gets washed away by rains into the rivers where human beings get their water.

Other key points to note:

1. Organic does not necessarily = sustainable.. You can have organic asparagus flown in from Argentina but that doesn't mean it is good for the planet. Local organic is best because it reduces our reliance on fossil fuels. In addition, just because chickens are "free-range" does not mean they actually live outside and have space to roam. They could be living in a CAFO with a little door that leads to a small patch of grass that is not sufficient for the thousands of chickens inside the CAFO.

2. The treatment of pigs is ESPECIALLY alarming to me! They are raised in CAFOs in cages suspended a little above the ground so that they can shit and it falls to the floor. The cages are stacked so the pigs are shitting on top of each other. Maybe this is fine because pigs seem to like to root around in shit however, the setup is still alarming because they do not have space to turn around in their cages. Because they are weaned from their mother in such a short amount of time (compared to a natural weaning) they have a propensity to suck and bite. They are lined up with each pig facing the next pigs rear so they chew the tail of the pig in frotn of them. The pig whose tail is being chewed oftentimes does not care because of its deplorable condition. The industry has now put into place a procedure called "tail docking"- without anesthesia they cut each pig's tail to a nub. They leave the nub there because it is really sensitive so, when confined to the cage again and the tail is bitten, the pig will squirm and try not to have it's tail bitten. I think this is absolutely horrid.

3. I am still a meat eater but I am looking for ways to find meat that is not industrially produced. I don't mind eating animals but I do not support the living/dying conditions that industrial farms provide.

READ THIS BOOK!

Thanks for reading this especially long review! ...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Kristin rated it really liked it

Shelves: foodie

This was an amazing book. Pollen takes the reader on a food adventure that is thought provoking, disturbing and quietly challenges they way we all look at the meal in front of us - all without being obnoxious or righteous.

The book begins simply enough in an Iowa cornfield as Pollen breaks down the history of corn and the future of this simple grain. He deftly weaves this into how we eat this product and what it’s doing to us and agriculture. From Iowa we travel with him as he visits his steer (# This was an amazing book. Pollen takes the reader on a food adventure that is thought provoking, disturbing and quietly challenges they way we all look at the meal in front of us - all without being obnoxious or righteous.

The book begins simply enough in an Iowa cornfield as Pollen breaks down the history of corn and the future of this simple grain. He deftly weaves this into how we eat this product and what it’s doing to us and agriculture. From Iowa we travel with him as he visits his steer (#534) in the Colorado fields and in the feedlot of Kansas (Nebraska?).

The middle portion of the books moves into sustainable agriculture at its finest as he spends a week at Polyface farm. As a person familiar with farms, Polyface was amazing. Pollen starts the week on his stomach in a field examining the soil, he helps to move the cows from pasture to pasture, he assists in moving the chicken pens and describes they symbiotic relationship between the chickens and the cows. He talks about the rabbit and chicken house and the symbiotic relationship that exists there, he describes the cow barn in the spring and how the pigs turn 3 feet of cow muck, hay and fermented corn into black compost. And Pollen contrasts and compares “conventional farming” with this picture of “sustainable farming”.

In the third segement, Pollen has moved to California and examines what it means morally and ethically to be a vegetarian (giving up meat for a month). He has also decided to make a meal completely from those items he has grown, foraged and hunted himself.

This book is presented in such a down to earth matter that the reader can’t help but start to question how their food arrived on the table. Pollen doesn’t pontificate. He doesn’t raise his fist and pump it toward the sky and tell us we are all Bad People for Eating Meat. He doesn’t bombard us with anthropormophisism or silly sentiment. He took himself on a quest, shown us what he found, and I appreciated that more than anything.

Has this changed how I view my eating habits? You bet it has. Even more surprising, it changed the husbands. ...more

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Apr 24, 2007 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: foodie, favorites, read07

I can't remember the last time I read a book I learned so much from. This is highly recommended for anyone who wonders about food, obesity, organic, local, vegetarian, etc. Quotes if you're interested (but I could have quoted the entire book!). I know I will never look at corn the same way, nor will I ever buy the "cheap eggs."

(On obesity)"Very simply, we subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country, but not carrots. While the surgeon general is raising alarms over the epidemic of obesity, ...more

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Feb 08, 2018 Ms.pegasus rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Ms.pegasus by: selection of our local book club

Shelves: history, food, nonfiction

A more accurate subtitle for this book would be “An Ecology of Four Meals.” The ecological perspective permits Pollan to focus on questions of sustainability, and social and environmental cost, as opposed to the point of purchase price visible to the consumer. His first meal is the ubiquitous fast food family meal consumed on the road with his family. It is no surprise that the meal represents a choice of convenience over nutrition. What is surprising is that the meal is based on corn, Number 2 A more accurate subtitle for this book would be “An Ecology of Four Meals.” The ecological perspective permits Pollan to focus on questions of sustainability, and social and environmental cost, as opposed to the point of purchase price visible to the consumer. His first meal is the ubiquitous fast food family meal consumed on the road with his family. It is no surprise that the meal represents a choice of convenience over nutrition. What is surprising is that the meal is based on corn, Number 2 hybrid to be precise. This USDA designated field corn feeds all industrial farm cattle and poultry. It is the epitome of successful mono-culture farming, bred to accommodate mechanized cultivation and, in its genetically engineered iteration, resistant to pesticide application. Corn is a juggernaut that affects the way livestock are raised and the way food is manufactured. Cattle receive supplements and antibiotics to tolerate the feedlot stage of their journey from farm to slaughterhouse. Some of the hidden costs? Feedlot waste cannot be recycled into fertilizer. It contains toxic levels of heavy metals, hormone residue, phosphorus and nitrogen. Public health crises of antibiotic resistance and E. coli outbreaks present new problems for the medical community. Corn by-products like high fructose sweetener, starches and oil are at the base of food technology. Consumption of fossil fuels increases as the supply chain moves from local to global. A vicious cycle of overproduction and price supports insures the economic supremacy of this commodity. Is there a sustainable alternative?

Pollan shifts his examination to the organic food movement. On the one hand there is Big Business Organic. This is one of the most valuable sections of the book. He traces the tortured language of the USDA which purports to define “organic.” He visits Cascadia Foods, founded by Gene Kahn, and traces its trajectory from organic farming to a niche agribusiness. Kahn states flatly that the organic ideal simply was not sustainable as a business model without a link to a Big Organic distribution network. A pastoral marketing narrative has sprung from this distribution chain, hiding an inconvenient truth. Organic chickens do not live their entire lives in an open range. Organic cows eat organic grain — in the same overcrowded unbucolic feedlots. Pollan concludes: “The big question is whether the logic of an industrial food chain can be reconciled to the logic of the natural systems on which organic agriculture has tried to model itself. Put another way, is industrial organic ultimately a contradiction in terms?” (p.161)

As a counter example he visits Polyface Farms, a multi-culture organic farm nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. The cattle are grass-fed for their entire lives. Careful planning prevents overgrazing any single parcel of land. A meticulous choreography of chickens, turkeys, and pigs follow demonstrating a labor-intensive but successful example of sustainable, profitable organic farming.

Pollan turns to the psychological context of eating for his final meal. The meat is a wild pig he hunted and killed. The vegetables were grown from his garden. The mushrooms were foraged under the tutelage of some veteran mushroom hunters. He even attempts to harvest his own salt from the sea with amusing results. “This year the winter rains had persisted well into spring, making the ponds deeper and less saline than they would normally be in June. So instead of scraping snowy white crystals of sea salt off the rocks, as I'd anticipated, we ended up filling a couple of scavenged polyethaline soda bottles with the cloudy brown brine. That night I evaporated the liquid in a pan over a low flame; it filled the kitchen with a worrisome chemical steam, but after a few hours a promising layer of crystals the color of brown sugar formed in the bottom of the pan, and once it cooled I managed to scrape out a few tablespoons. Unfortunately this salt, which was a bit greasy to the touch, tasted so metallic and so much like chemicals that it actually made me gag, and required a chaser of mouthwash to clear from my tongue.” (p.193-194) Fortunately for his dinner guests, Pollan turns to the safety of the salt in his pantry.

These chapters shed light on the cultural quandary we have created. Speed and convenience in both food acquisition and preparation have deprived us of the sense of anticipation. There is also the disproportionate valuation of quantity over quality. You don't have to buy at a Costco or Sam's Club to experience this. It is almost impossible to buy loose produce at the local grocery retailer. Food has been removed from an emotional context that included smells from the kitchen, a growing sensation of hunger, and an appreciation of the manual labor involved. He recaptures all of this in his elaborate banquet of foraged food. Early in the book Pollan laments the absence of a national food culture in America. “As a relatively new nation drawn from many different immigrant populations each with its own culture of food, Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us.” (p.5) Here, I think he errs. Mobility has desensitized us to the idea of local food as well as the continuous hands-on learning that gets passed on in an extended family. He points out the importance of direct experience in learning how to forage for mushrooms. Despite a stack of field guides, it is the authoritative certainty of his mentors that enables him to forage with both confidence and accuracy (no one died from the mushrooms he served!)

When I began this book I was expecting a censorious examination of bad food habits. Instead, I discovered new dimensions for thinking about food. It's about sustainability and humane sourcing, nutrition and flavor, but it's also about awareness and understanding at both the microscopic and macroscopic levels. This book was the selection of our local book club. ...more

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Aug 20, 2007 Tim rated it it was ok

Has served to overcome my general revulsion of journalists mascarading expose as scientific truth (e.g. Malcolm Gladwell or Thomas Friedman). Well worth reading, though a second, scientific perspective (read "not Schlosser") would be a good companion to fill out what this book offers.

---Finished: I take back what I said, what I thought was gearing up to be analytical and thought provoking really unwound over the course of the book. Pollan comes off a lot more like a homespun wisdom-spewing gran ...more

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Nov 01, 2009 Christine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reporting, cookbooks-and-food

Twice a week, there is a farmer's market at my local park. It is half a block away from my house. For the last several years, I've brought food there. I can no longer eat, for instance, apples from the supermarket. They taste waxy. Considering how much I like my local farmer's market, it's surprising that it took me so long to read this book.

Seeing marked down to a dollar helped motivate me.

It's a good book. It's a scary book. It makes me want to buy everything from the farmer's market (which is ...more

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About Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan

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Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism.

Excerpted from Wikipedia. ...more

Books by Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

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“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ” — 183 likes

“So that's us: processed corn, walking.” — 85 likes

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