The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Michael Pollan
What should we have for dinner? For omnivore 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, buffered 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 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, at 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-science 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 moral 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.
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for some reason before reading this, i had a negative opinion of it. not sure who i've heard talk about it, but i actually enjoyed this. i agree that food plays such a crucial role in our wellbeing and i enjoyed learning more about the food system in the us and where some of our food comes from. it is kind of crazy to think that they can get away with selling us some of this stuff, and it has definitely made me think more about the fact that you are what you eat, but also what you eat eats. also cool to learn about the farmers out there who are doing it right, i wish that was more easily accessible to us - but maybe it is and i just have never noticed before?
that being said, i probably won't be loosing sleep over this, and am not sure i can make any real radical changes now. all in all i'm leaving with a little more knowledge, and it hopefully helps me to think twice about what i eat.
EDIT - just realized i actually listened to the young readers edition and not the original one he wrote - not sure if what i listened to was a more watered down version?
0I have started and stopped this book a number of times over the years, and I'm so proud that I finally finished it! Nonfiction is very challenging for me to sit down and read, but I actually found this book as interesting to read as my normal fiction.
I was not a fan of the book that anchored Pollan's rise to fame - the Botany of Desire - primarily because it was so verbose, filled primarily with Pollan waxing poetic about plants and following his own interests into lengthy asides that were painful to get through. The Omnivore's Dilemma certainly has sections with that writing style (the boar hunt was a bit much), but it's filled more so with incredibly well researched, fascinating journalism. I LOVED this book and learned so much from it.
I think my favorite part of the book was the fact that reading it felt more like we were taking the journey to better understand America's food systems alongside Pollan rather than having information thrown back at us. It was as much our journey as his and I found myself pondering the same questions Pollan was considering throughout the book in my free time. Thought-provoking is the word I would use to encapsulate this book best. I loved how the book was divided and found each section more interesting than the last.
Vegetarians/Vegans may criticize Pollan for not going far enough in his exploration of giving up animal products and trying to explore food systems that aren't built upon animal cruelty. I actually appreciated his more hands-off approach. To me, the purpose of the book was to help the reader take the plunge and actually look at where our food is coming from. I think most people understand that most of the food we have access to isn't produced in an ethically sound way, but we simply choose to ignore it. The book helps guide the reader through the discomfort of confronting the systems we live in and provides a template for starting to ask the important questions about what one is and isn't comfortable participating in. Rather than tell us what to think, Pollan simply asks that we think about it all and decide for ourselves what feels right.
This book really helped solidify for me that I'm not comfortable participating in the traditional meat industry, at least on a regular basis. Like Pollan, I struggle with the inconvenience of having a dietary restriction, both upon myself and others. I really believe that meat should be something that is consumed sparingly for special occasions. I want to limit my meat consumption more than I already do and try and ensure the meat that I do eat is ethically sourced if possible. I want to challenge to myself to embrace the discomfort of inconveniencing myself by limiting my options and see how it feels! Being a vegetarian is so opposite to the culture I grew up in that staunchly refusing to eat meat genuinely feels like it would strain my social relationships. I want to commit to at least trying it out!
This book is a bit dated at my time of reading and I would love an updated version!
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