The Omnivore's Dilemma

I listened to this book on audio after it was recommended by a friend, and I'm glad I did. I hope you will purchase it and read it, too! The first thing to know is that the author is such a good storyteller that he teaches writing at Harvard. To dissect and tell the very complex story of the USA food system, he uses four case studies (consisting of four meals) as a framework to examine the overall system in the United States through which food is produced, regulated, subsidized, packaged, distributed, marketed, and sold in the USA. The four meals he uses to dissect and analyze this system bring it down to earth in a practical way that enables one to understand it. The four meals consist of (1) a fast food meal consumed by his family, (2) an "organic," "natural " meal using the ingredients purchased from a high-end retail grocery chain, (3) a meal produced by a farm family that grows virtually everything they eat, and (4) a meal in which he attempted to mirror the type of food a hunter gather might have been able to obtain by foraging and hunting their own food. For each of these meals, he examines each ingredient used and traces that ingredient back to its ultimate origins. When I say ultimate origins, I mean for example not just the cow in the slaughter lot for the McDonald's hamburger, but the corn that fed that cow, the systems by which the corn farmer produced the grain, the USDA agricultural subsidies that resulted in the production of that corn, the transportation and delivery systems ... you get the drift. He uses this example to examine an extremely complex system and a way that makes it understandable and digestible. Best of all, it's not ever boring. He tells the story In such a way that you feel like you get to know the people involved and their stories, why they do what they do, what their challenges are, and what rewards are. And then for each meal, he describes what it was like to eat it, which is kind of fun too. For the fast food meal, he and his family drove while they ate it, since it was supposed to be "fast" and "on the go" (my words). For the second meal, the organic meal, he discusses the initial movement for sustainability and how that got co-opted by big business and the USDA, so that the term "organic" got to be controlled by industry and now no longer means what a lot of people think it does. Instead, the requirements for being called "organic," are so complex that small farms are shut out, and the huge operations that have grown to meet the demand for "organic " are just about as industrialized as the industrial agriculture described in the fast food restaurant meal. The third meal, originating from a sustainable family farm that grows all its own food and produces all its own fertilizer, is the most intriguing for me personally. It discusses the challenges faced by that small family farm and ways they have Ingeniously worked around outrageously cumbersome USDA agricultural regulations that are designed to control excesses of industrial farms but which are also applied to the tiniest of family farms without regard for differences in scale or farming methods. For the last meal, he reveals his credentials as an amazing home cook, when he describes the feast he prepared for his guests after he participated in a hunt to kill a wild boar and roast it. I hope my description hasn't included too many spoilers, because the information in the book is extremely worthwhile and worth your read and your time and your consideration as you think about the sources of your food, the nutritional value of food, how to become a more ethical consumer of food, and importantly, to be aware of our overall food system and ways that it really needs to be completely restructured , including especially restructuring of USDA agricultural policy, if the US food system is to be come responsive to human nutritional needs and sustainable for the future.

I have to say, this is one fantastic book. Amazing. One of those rare books that forces your eyes wide open to an issue that you'd only dimly been aware of. It's one of those books everyone in the country should read, one that should be of cataclysmic proportions and Change Everything. I won't destroy the effect of the book by trying to re-state the information in the book and doing a bad job. Let's just say that everyone who eats food should read it. As a rationalist, I've always been sympathetic to the "Organic foods" movement but uncomfortable with all the pseudo-mystical thinking that's often associated with it. It made sense to me in principle that growing food the way evolution intended made sense, but I found the arguments I often encountered to often be mostly feel-good, unspecific talk about Cycles of Nature and Gaia and Earth Mother and so on. They weren't fact-y enough for me. This book definitely is. It doesn't have one pseudoscientific vibe to it. Conservatives can read it just as comfortably as the most crunchy-granola hippie. Pollan should have won a Pulitzer Prize for this book. It's magnificently researched and written. It has plenty of hard fact, but instead of being boring, his clear, simple writing brings them to life and gives them meaning. He makes his cases carefully, using evidence and fact, and gradually builds to conclusions that I'm forced to admit are inescapable. It's one of those few fantastic books that takes a subject that's usually dull and dry and makes it not just interesting but, at least for me, *gripping*. It not only educated me about a whole hell of a lot of things I didn't know, but it walked me though, step by logical step, the reasons why the way our current food production system is seriously broken and horrible for us the consumers, for the farmers, for the plants and animals involved, and for the planet. I had heard this time and time again from various people, but I always took it with a big grain of salt because the people saying these things also often said ridiculous things about other topics, and I thought their virulence might be largely fed by generic anti-capitalist bias. While I was never exactly an opponent of natural foods or a fan of factory farming, my feelings were nonspecific because I hadn't really looked into it very much, and I had a real skepticism of all the wild accusations made by the more radical people in some movements. But now, I'm convinced. Michael Pollan has presented me with actual objective facts, presented clearly and logically, in an unbiased way, and convinced me through the sheer power of his reasoning. My mind wasn't changed 180 degrees, but it was definitely changed 90 degrees. In some cases the logic is so clear it had me practically slapping my forehead in shock at how stupid people can be. It's been quite a long time since I've been so captivated by the crystal clear beauty of the elegant logic in a perfectly crafted argument. One thing I like best is that Pollan is largely unbiased himself. Yes, the book does come to conclusions that are very much against some practices and for very much for others, but he makes the arguments so clear and strong that you can only end up agreeing with him. He doesn't, for example, come out with a glowing, uncritical, credulous affirmation of "organic" food, as I had expected. While generally positive, he acknowledges serious problems with the system. I can't recommend this book any more strongly. If it's completely ignored by government and industry - and I'm sure it will be - it's a crime. This may be the most important book in decades.

The Omnivore's Dilemma (a review) Probably, if you were going to read it you have already, but if you haven't ... you might want to pick it up. It was the #1 New York Times Bestseller in 2006 and it's still quite relevant today -- maybe more so, who knows. Normally we may think of evolution as a drive toward complexity, but bacteria has gone the other direction, it's evolved downward into simplicity and into very niche environments. This is an excellent survival strategy - what will survive any catastrophe you can imagine? Somewhere, bacteria, probably. But most animals have opted for complexity and flexibility instead. They are able to move about and adapt to new environments. But here's the rub: since they choose to be flexible, they have to be flexible. There is a direct analogy in the gastronomic world, it turns out. Some creatures have taken the simple approach by consuming a limited range of things. They can afford to do this because they have evolved elaborate intestines with which to work food over thoroughly and in which to harbor bacteria which converts one sort of input into all the various nutrients their bodies need. These are the herbivores and carnivores, and genetic code alone, which we call instinct, is sufficient to get them fed. On the other hand, omnivores have taken the high road; their innards are leaner and less elaborate so they must gather the right mix of inputs themselves. And in doing so, they must avoid the dangerous ones. This requires a lot of care, and thought, and therefore ... big brains. It's a tradeoff of a simple lifestyle and an elaborate belly, or a complicated lifestyle, and a lean interior. So the omnivore's dilemma is gathering how to gather the right foods and not take in the harmful kind. That in itself is a dilemma, but Pollan points out there are plenty of moral quandries as well. The book is as entertaining as The Botany of Desire (2001), in which he looked at the story of apples, potatos, tulips, and marijuana from the plants' perspective. Here he takes on corn, grass, meat, and fungus, and once again we benefit from his careful research and introspection (the latter, occasionally laid on a little thick, for my taste). He also does a great deal of field observation, visiting the food factories and farms, talking to many different kinds of people, gathering mushrooms, and even slitting some chicken necks himself, and shooting a wild boar. He describes much of this so well I felt I had done it too. His best field trips included a large sustainable farm in Virginia where production is high, costs are relatively low, waste is almost nil, and the animals are mostly content. It's most impressive in the cleverness with which it all works, and the owner explains that in detail. It's a stark contrast to some of the more corporate operations - like a standard corn-fed feedlot, a poultry farm, even an organic farm that turned out to be pretty much like the others. In these chapters the moral dilemmas come into the sharpest focus. Food -- if you haven't noticed -- has become a new moral battleground, and when Pollan disparaged the new methods, and the lower quality of food they sometimes produce at times I felt he didn't fully appreciate the countervailing moral implications of the much larger quantities turned out now. All that food is a good thing, too. When he marveled that corn production increased from 75 bu/acre in 1950 to 180 in 2006 (140% increase, and often to the detriment of small time farmers), he didn't mention that world population increased by 172% in the same period. Sometimes I though it was a little one-sided because the older methods could not easily produce the food we need now. Hybrid vigor, that gives us pumped up ears of corn, is itself infertile. That's not a Monsanto conspiracy -- as he intimates -- it is a fact of nature. Vigorous hybrids, like mules, are often -- oddly -- infertile. In the end it appears he was sometimes just exploring some of the more extreme views of his interviewees, as his own conclusions seemed balanced and reasonable, in my opinion. As a reader I felt I had been treated fairly. First, it's corn's dizzying ascendency as a food source, with the field trip to a chemical plant that rips the kernal pulp apart, sending it out in a tangle of different spigots -- some headed for the gas tank, others to the various mixers of myriad foodstuffs, others to make non-edibles. There's a good discussion of the political and economic forces driving the corn industry too. In the second section, on "grass," he works on a the sustainable Virginia farm, among other things. When it comes to meat, he compares the sustainable approach to that in a large organic poultry operation, a feedlot, and commercial slaughterhouse, and more. And all through the book he comments on underlying philosophical issues. And the section of fungus (mushrooms) is interesting from a botanical perspective, mostly. It could have been in The Botany of Desire. In the end he pulls the story together by describing his "perfect meal" made up of perfect ingredients, served to perfect guests. That just seemed unnecessary, to me but by that time I'd had a good enough intellectual and philosophical material to chew on - enough food for thought, you might say - to forgive him a little retrospective self-indulgence.

This book had me enthralled from start to finish. Pollan's writing style is informal yet skilled - effortless to read yet highly informative. That's so much harder than it sounds. Furthermore he's willing and able to confront his own ambivalence on an issue and will gladly acknowledge opposing points of view even as his own view changes. This sort of introspection and personal touch is quite rare for a book that's so informative. It's divided into three main sections: first, a history and overview of American agribusiness, which is a history and overview of corn. Corn is in nearly everything you buy (even the cucumbers in your produce section have a corn-based wax on them to help preserve them). It's subsidized and grown unsubstainably to the tune of billions of dollars a year, then the gigantic piles of surplus corn are further subsidized as they try to figure out just what to do with it all. The answer is to get you, the consumer, to eat more of it. It's all quite fairly handled, I think, but the depths of the excess are still shocking. In the second part of the book, Pollan examines sustainable grass farming as compared to the industrial model. This is where your hope may be restored, even as you realize what a tiny part of the giant food chain farms such as Polyface are. But he also examines what a joke the term 'organic' has become - you may be mortified to find that certain brands are really nothing more than an excuse to sell you crap produced in nearly the same way as in giant non-organic farms at a higher price. They do this by selling you a picture of a happy farm with cows and chickens out to pasture (as Polyface really is) when the reality is far, far different. This is not going to be a good book for you if you're a fan of Whole Foods Market and don't want to know how you're being fooled. Finally he sets out on a quest to produce a dinner from scratch containing only items he's grown, harvested, or killed himself - which turns out to be an amazing amount of work. And this is the chapter where religious vegetarians go nuts. Pollan examines his own beliefs, goes vegetarian for a time to further put them to the test, but then nonetheless hunts and kills a wild pig for his dinner. His description of the entire process, from anticipation, fear, nervousness, joy, utter disgust, and final acceptance rings very true, and he spares little of himself in writing it up. And in the end he decides that it's more the process (how industrial livestock is treated) than the principle (eating animals) that matters to him the most and reconciles himself with eating meat. So if you are a vegetarian for moral reasons rather than simply health reasons you are going to hate this chapter and it's going to spoil the whole book for you (as you can see in some of the other reviews). For the rest of us, however, it's a rather inspiring examination of the problems of eating meat, or indeed of eating at all. He lays out a hierarchy of food production desirability from local sustainable production and consumption to full scale industrial on the other end. I have already adjusted my habits and am eating less industrial food - and have noticed just how nearly impossible it is to give it up entirely unless you grow your own food, which I'm not in a position to do.

I almost never write reviews, but after the amount of time I devoted to reading this book and the gratefulness I have to Mr. Pollan for researching and sharing his knowledge and wisdom within it, I feel obligated. The book is well organized into Contents of 3 Parts: Industrial (Corn), Pastoral (Grass), and Personal (Forest). I have no idea why "Personal" was chosen over the term Hunter-Gatherer, as that was what he was going for. You may have picked up on that the Contents are in reverse chronological order, a timeline from current to pre-historic. In case you are wondering what "A Natural History of Four Meals" refers to, it is those three aforementioned Parts with Pastoral being subdivided into Big Organic/Industrial Organic and Small/Local organic. Pollan's admirable and ambitious goal is to figure out how our food in the USA gets from earth to plate in each category. Part I - Industrial has a lot of eye-opening information in regards to farming, ranching, and the science. Even with all of that great information I found it the hardest part to get through as Pollan beats the metaphorical horse to death lambasting the industrial food system. I didn't make it through Part I the first time I tried reading it 10 years ago and now I can see why. Even though it is the shortest of the 3 parts there is a redundancy and negativity where I felt it should have been edited down even further. Part II - Pastoral is the longest of the 3 parts and was my favorite part of the book. I grew up on a farm/ranch and some of the descriptions and emotions that he conveyed took me right back onto my family farm. I don't think it would be much of a reach to assume Pollan a lefty/liberal city slicker having grown up in the New England, moved to California and teaching at Berkley, but in his writings of the "grass farmer" Joel you can tell how much respect and admiration he has for the man even though their personal and political beliefs may be worlds apart. I also thought Pollan's critique and DILEMMAs he posed in this section led to some of his best writing in the book. Part III - Personal was a excellent conclusion to the book, though it does have a completely different tone to it. The first two Parts (Industrial and Pastoral) are an examination of the US food system. This last part is Pollan doing his best to recreate the hunter-gatherer food lifestyle while living in urban California, in hopes that it will add to the big picture he painted for us in the first two parts. As someone who grew up on a farm hunting it was refreshing to have a novice from the city, who likely looked down on us in someway, dive fully into the hunter outdoorsmen experience to understand our way of life. I'd be proud to buy Mr. Pollan a beer congratulating him on his first successful hunt. I also found the chapters on the mysterious mushrooms and preparing the food educational and entertaining. Angelo in particular seems like pretty cool, kickass dude. A few critiques: Mr. Pollan frequently uses personification when talking about plants and their evolution, like when he makes statements that corn chose us as much as we chose it. That's not how it works and I found it to be a distracting and annoying repeated offense. Finished in late 2005, the book could use an update on the farming end. The farmers had a nice run for a stretch, lets say 2009-2015. Things have turned really ugly in both the cattle markets and commodity markets since then. It would be nice to see an update of why things turned around for the better, then flipped again. And we could always use a few more wise words from Mr. Joel Salatin. Looking forward to reading and reviewing "In Defense of Food".

When I bought this book for my dad he simply said, "A book about food?" I laughed and tried to tell him it is probably more about what is wrong with the country (government, business, foreign policy) than it is about food. I heard Michael Pollan speak on NPR about this book and that sparked my interest. He was railing against corn as he does in the first section of the book here: For instance, I had no idea we used so much fossil fuel to get corn to grow as much as it does. The book provides plenty of other interesting facts that most people don't know (or want to) about their food. 1) We feed cattle (the cattle we eat) corn. OK. Seems fine. But I never knew cows are not able to digest corn. We give them corn so the corn farmers -who are protected by subsidies and at the same time hurt by them - can get rid of all the excess corn we produce - (more of the excess goes into high fructose corn syrup which is used in coke and many other soft drinks). This sees company owned farms injecting their cattle with antibiotics so they can digest the corn. Not just to shed farmers' excess corn but to also: a) Get the cow fatter in a shorter amount of time because . . b) A cow on this diet could really only survive 150 days before the acidity of the corn eats away at the rumen (a special cow digestive organ FOR GRASS, not corn). c) Also the pharmaceutical companies get big profits because they manufacture large amounts of antibiotics for these large mammals. All this may lead to increase in fat content and other peculiarities in the meat we eat. 2) The amount of fossil fuel we use to grow food is ridiculous and helps keeps the Saudis happy. If you buy an apple from Washington and live in New Jersey, think of how much gas went into transporting that fruit to me! Better to buy from Iowa. Better than that: buy from a farmer's market and this is one of Pollan's main suggestions: Buy your food local and maybe you can even find out what is exactly in your hot dog. 3) CAFOS - large corporate feeding pens - where pigs (who are very smart animals) and even chickens display signs of suicidal tendencies. 4) Pollan talks about Big Organic and spends a lot of time here. "Big Organic" is seemingly an oxymoron. He shows how Big Organic companies treat their animals and farms in many similar ways to other industrial farms. However, he makes you think by talking to one organic executive who says, "Get over it . . . the real value of putting organic on an industrial scale, is the sheer amount of acreage it puts under organic management. Behind every organic TV dinner or chicken or carton of industrial organic milk stands a certain quantity of land that will no longer be doused with chemicals, an undeniable gain of the environment and public health." - pg. 158 True, but the similarities between big companies and how supermarkets only want to deal with them is what Pollan thinks is the problem with our food. 5) Pollan focuses the most of his book on Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms in rural Virginia. Salatin calls himself a "grass farmer" (no not THAT grass). You could call it "real organic" but for Pollan it is how we should be farming and what we should eat. Cows, chickens, pigs roaming freely eating grass, and tasting like they should in the end. The problem is that not every area of the USA is as fertile as southwestern Virginia . . .but I am sure Pollan would suggest that each region should specialize in its delicacies and get used to not eating things that aren't in season or animals we don't see. It would be hard for the average American to not be provided with bananas from January - December, but if we want to cut back on fossil fuels (though Pollan notes - trade is good), if we want our eggs to taste like eggs and chicken to taste like chickens and not McChickens, we need to do a better job of eating local. This sends Pollan on his final journey, to hunt for his own food and provide his helpers, with a meal totally foraged by him. A lot of cool facts here that I never knew or took the time to care about (I never knew the mushroom was so mysterious). I would have liked him to talk more about trade, different areas' food specialties and also how preparing a meal such as his at the end seems a little too time consuming even for the outdoors enthusiast. I think all Americans - conservatives, liberals, whatevers - can enjoy this book. Liberals for the "return to nature mentality," conservatives for the same reason: Pollan rails into Animal Rights' activists and shows how though they may have good intentions; they would rather upset the balance of nature before they kill anything. Ominvore's Dilemma is a tremendous contribution, exposing how big corporations and old government practices continue to harm us and our country. The way we thought about food was changed with "Super Size Me" hopefully this book will change they way we want to go about obtaining our food.

Omnivore's Dilemma is a wonderfully written book which covers all aspects of food in today's world. Michael Pollan starts by taking a close look at industrial agriculture from the view point of Corn. A plant that is tailor made to our mass production, fossil fuel dependent agricultural ways. Corn farmers benefit from government subsidies that guarantee the farmer a minimum price per bushel. This has led to an overproduction of corn which has further led to corn based products inundating nearly every food shelf in today's supermarkets. Our farm animals are also raised on diets consisting largely of corn. Yet industrial corn farming, as the author explains, causes much harm. The rich fertile soil in the Midwest is eroding at a rapid pace. The fast growth of corn requires copious quantities of fertilizer in addition to insecticide. Chemical fertilizers seep into the streams and rivers and have caused an immense zone deplete of Oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico. Industrial farming methods have also increased our dependence on fossil fuels. By some estimates, one calorie of corn requires on average ten calories of fossil fuel before it reaches the consumer. Michael Pollan discusses how we raise meat in this country. Take the millions of steaks served all across the country every day. The cattle slaughtered were mostly raised on a CAFO(Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) on a diet that evolution ill suited them to eat. A diet consisting largely of Corn. The Angus cattle spend most of their lives on lots devoid of grass or vegetation and full of eye irritating dust. They spend their lives ankle deep in their excrement and require antibiotics and anti parasitic drugs to survive until slaughter. They suffer from acidosis of the rumen, an organ evolved to break down the cellulose in grass. The E-Coli that sicken so many Americans every year are of a strain that adapted to survive in the now more acid rumen and which now can survive our acidic stomachs to make us sick. Michael Pollan contrasts this form of agriculture to a farm in Virginia that raises chickens(broilers and eggs), and Cattle on only grass. The cattle feed on luscious grass kept that way by rotating the cattle from one area of the pasture to another to avoid overgrazing. The chickens feed on the grass and insects attracted to the farm life. The grass benefits by the natural fertilizer these animals provide. The farm is as productive per acre as an Industrial farm yet there are no hidden costs. No animal suffering, fertilizer runoffs, government subsidies, and the carbon footprint is far less. Although the author does not devote a chapter on health and food, the health implications of how we grow our food is a common theme throughout the book. The organic food industry is talked about in length. The origins of the term 'Organic' as well as how that term has now been co-opted by large industrial food producers thanks in large part to the federal department of agriculture. The book slips into the esoteric realm of philosophy of food on more than one occasion, but the forays are usually brief and welcome. How to grow food for 300 million people is immensely challenging. Especially since we're all so used to such a varied diet year round (strawberries in January). Yet there are costs to the way we grow our food that are not paid at the supermarket register. These hidden costs are in the form of environmental damage, governmental subsidies sought by a very powerful farm lobby, and even national security costs in having a food supply so dependent on fossil fuels supplied by foreign countries. Eating local, the author strongly suggests, could be a viable alternative. Expenditure on energy for transportation would be significantly cut, and a firsthand knowledge of where and how the food you consume would be gained. This might seem like a small benefit but the author argues that this could potentially be positivelytranformative in the quality of the food we eat. Although this isn't a diet book, you can't help but change your eating habits after reading this book. I learned a great deal. I highly recommend it.

The Omnivore's Dilemma. It's certainly an interesting book, a well written book - but one I feel a little....ambivalent towards, an ambivalence that has grown and stretched and now threatens to schizophrenically dictate this review. I will try to hold it together but...well I have a dilemma! Im really really not sure how I feel about this book. Perhaps it's because some of the topics covered in this book are becoming increasingly nearer and dearer to my little heart, and it's as if I can see us on opposite sides of the line, and he's just staring me down, "pitying" the poor vegetarian who is in" denial of reality." Or perhaps I'm upset that it's not the happy ending I had hoped for - that in spite of all he witnesses and even participates in - he's pretty much just as close minded and stuck in his ways as when he started the journey. Perhaps I'm torn between the fact that I did indeed learn tons of interesting facts from this book (like yeast can be harvested in your own backyard!) but that at the same time Pollan almost blatantly overlooks going into a deeper exploration of what would support what he might call a "sentimental" or "animal people" lifestyle. Pollan's book follows, to a certain extent, four meals. The industrial agricultural meal of corn to Mcnugget,the two different kinds of organic - the industrial Whole Foods bought meal and the "local" Polyface farms meal, and the foraged and hunted meal he cobbles together from the general surrounding area of Berkeley California. The first part of the book I really dug. It was interesting! He explains how corn has become such a huge huge crop in the United States and how it has found its way into so many of our foods - becoming the building blocks of the bulk of our processed food (yogurt, ketchup, candy, cheez whiz - the list goes on) to the point that its almost impossible to eat a packaged food that doesn't contain corn! And it doesn't end at just food, corn is a part of "disposable diapers, trash bags, cleansers, charcoal briquettes, matches, batteries, right down to the shine on the cover of the magazine." He even reveals the identity of the elusive and mysterious Xanthan Gum. He digs into the mystery of why corn has been grown and used so widely. He then starts talking about how corn is used in the meat industry as feedstock for the animals. I was surprised to learn (I'm not sure why really because it does kinda make sense) that cows cannot digest corn. Ruminants, which are animals that have rumens (cows, llamas, deer, sheep, giraffe, camels, ect) are grass eaters by nature. What happens when you feed ruminants grain? They get sick. Pollan says that "virtually all of them [feedlot cattle] to one degree or another, according to several animal scientists I talked to - are simply sick." Bloat is a concern for ruminants eating grains and is described as " a layer of foamy slime [which] forms in the rumen and can trap gas. The rumen inflates like a balloon until it presses against the animal's lungs. Unless action is taken promptly to relieve the pressure (usually forcing a hose down the animals' esophagus), the animal suffocates." Another common side effect of the animals diet is acidosis. The basic symptom of acidosis is "bovine heartburn that in some cases can kill the animal" or cause the animal to "pant and salivate excessively, paw and scratch their bellies, and eat dirt. The condition leads to diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, ruminates, liver disease and a general weakening of the immune system." I've always heard that cows (and industrial livestock in general) were pumped full of antibiotics but I didn't fully know why until reading this part of the book. Pollan also inspects the other aspects of the cow's diets and finds...well cows. The cows on the farm he is exploring are fed "blood products and fat," or in other words the steer that Pollan bought and is following through it's life is being fed "beef tallow recycled from the very slaughterhouse he's headed to in June." Also in cattle feed are "feather meal and chicken litter (that is, bedding, feces, and discarded bits of feed) " as well as "chicken, fish and pig meal. Wait these herbivores are eating animals and animal waste and even their own species?! I found this particular meal - from corn to McDonald's to be pretty fascinating. Pollan artfully lays out the history behind the present state of things (the over-production of corn and soy and the mass production of animals for slaughter) and makes links to our current bulging waistlines, all while setting up things for the next two chapters. He accuses (rightfully) American's of being out of touch with their food (a sentiment I assume he handled heavily in his other book In Defense of Food, which I haven't read but have read reviews on, so I know the general punch-line) and says that if we are what we eat, then Americans are unknowingly walking, talking bundles of corn and petroleum (petroleum being the fertilizer, the harvester, the processor, the transporter, and even some of the ingredients of our food). Pollan is far from the first person to attempt to turn American's off to fast food - but I feel like he does a thorough job of creating a story with which to bind his message in. Not only do we learn about the weird list of ingredients that goes into a chicken nugget but we also learn about the struggle of the corn and soybean farmer who no longer have the option of playing by the "supply and demand" rule we all remember memorizing for our Econ101 classes. Up through this point, I'm pretty pleased with the book. I'm enjoying reading it and I'm looking forward to more. Next Pollan goes into the organic meal - but as he is soon to find out, organic has different meaning to different farmer and consumers and so he is forced to break down the term a little bit and he explores the industrial organic farm and then a more small scale organic farm. For the industrial organic farm he compiles his meal from the vast array of organic and natural treats at a Whole Foods supermarket. He describes the shopping as a "literary experience." Marketers in the food business have a tough job - how do they get us to spend more money on items that may look and taste exactly alike? How can they assure us that the organic chicken breast we are buying is more nutritious, more ethical, or more tasty? Pollan wittily names this sort of writing - the work of the food marketer- as "Supermarket Pastoral," and the questions he draws, while walking through the Whole Foods reading pamphlets and labels and comparing organic products that boast different but both alluring aspects (he cites two organic jugs of milk, one ultra pasteurized - touting its long shelf life - the other company said no to ultrapasteurizing and claims they have a fresher, less processed product because of it) exemplifies just how confusing and slippery shopping can be. The recent trend in the United States it to buy natural, organic, and local foods - but Pollan points out that those words are defined differently by different companies and its hard to know, as the consumer, just what you are buying. So he goes back to the source - the farms - and tries to discover where his chicken (Rosie is her name according to the package) actually came from, and if her described living conditions matched his expectations. I wont ruin all the surprises for you in this book but suffice it to say that the label "free range" didn't quite mean what we would all expect. Something interesting I learned from this little section - the life of a chicken on the Petaluma Poultry farm is only 7 weeks long. Only 7 weeks to produce big juicy breasts of meat. Surprisingly short really! In this section Pollan also talks about little farms who made it big - like Earthbound Farms who pretty much have a monopoly on organic baby greens - which perfectly segways into his next section - the little organic farms. Pollan spends a little less than a week on Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Virginia to find out what this self professed "grass farmer" is all about. Salatin, and a small group of hired hands and family members, run a pretty fascinating and well orchestrated choreography of animals at Polyface based on Pollan's description. This is what people think of when they think of "free range" or "humanely raised" animals. Salatin's secret to success: letting the animals do what they do best while working within the cycles of the grass. The cows are moved around the pasture to systematically eat the grass, the chickens move three days behind the cows to pick the insects out of the cowpaties, the pigs turn the stacked cowpoop from the winter shed into rich compost. Salatin has all kinds of little inventions and time tested rules that make this dance run on schedule. It's obvious from the way Pollan writes about this farm that he is pretty impressed by it, but at the same time he paints Salatin in an occasional condescending light. I get the feeling in this chapter that Pollan is really looking for a finished meat product that is "good to think" - meaning he can still eat the meat without feeling bad about killing an animal for it. The chickens at Polyface are killed and prepared and bought right on the farm - and Pollan describes his experience working at the "killing station" and the evisceration part of the job. For the average American, this is not a process we are at all familiar with. Part of what makes Polyface so special is that the slaughter is done out in the open. Salatin encourages his buyers to come witness the process and even participate if they choose. Pollan admits to a fair amount of disgust at the whole process and wonders if he will be able to cook and eat one of the birds he just helped turn from a living animal into a brined chicken carcass. He writes in several parts of the book for the need to have more connection with our food and the processes they go through. He says that if the raising and slaughtering of animals was as accessible and transparent as the process at Polyface people would either stop eating meat or would demand more humane practices. While I can get behind this statement (although for me it wouldn't matter if it was "more humane" or not - it goes beyond that for me, so I still wouldn't eat it) I was disappointed that Pollan didn't spend a bit more time talking about the pigs on Polyface. What kind of life do they lead? How does he feel about animals that are raised in a more humane situation like this but still go to the same slaughterhouses as industrially raised animals? Pollan's meal from the Polyface farm is shared with some friends nearby (he considered taking it back to California but thought that might tarnish the local sustainability value of it) and both he and the guests proclaimed it to be more chickeny flavored than most chickens. Everyone except one of the son's "Mathew, who's fifteen and currently a vegetarian." Here is where I flinch a little bit. Why currently? Is Pollan suggesting that Mathew is part of some fad - as if he is currently wearing the latest jeans - and his choice (a pretty important and mature choice to even consider at a young age) shouldn't be taken seriously? Turns out that's exactly what he is insinuating as he makes more clear in the last chapter of his book - the self made meal. In Pollan's last meal he decides to shoot a pig, harvest mushrooms (sounds like hard work but could be fun too!) capture his own yeast, and collect salt. Before shooting a pig Pollan decides (after reading Animal Liberation while eating a steak) that he has to examine his feelings about taking an animal life and the only way he can do so is to become a "reluctant," and "fervently hoped, temporary vegetarian." It's in this section - The Vegetarian's Dilemma - that he start referring to vegetarians and vegans as "animal people." He says that in the first month of eating vegetarian he is still feeling reluctant. "I find making a satisfying vegetarian dinner takes a lot more thought and work (chopping work in particular); eating meat is simply more convenient." What really really irks me about this sentence is that it's just exactly what non-vegetarian's want to hear to pat themselves soothingly on the back and say - see, it's just not realistic. Eating meat is convenient and therefore ok to do. Also, why doesn't he describe any of his vegetarian meals? He goes at length to describe the Polface chicken: "The skin had turned the color of mahogany and the texture of parchment, almost like Pekind duck, and the meat itself was moist, dense, and almost shockingly flavorful. I could taste the brine of the apple wood..." Not one single description of a vegetarian meal. I am forced to believe (not only because of this, but because of the obvious disdain he has for the experiment as well as the practicers of the lifestyle) that he didn't really take this "challenge" from Peter Singer seriously. He talks a bit about animal suffering too - and says the idea is vexing to him because "in a certain sense it is impossible to know what goes on in the mind of a cow or pig or ape." Sounds like a copout to me. Oh well its impossible to know what animals are feeling so can we really say they are suffering? Nope - lets eat steak. Yet in another place in the book he talks about how pigs are shown to be just as intelligent as some breeds of dogs and he questions why most dogs in America are given Christmas presents yet no thought is given to the pig served as Christmas dinner. He doesn't take it to the next step though - why don't we eat our dogs after they die? Because they are intelligent and sensitive creatures with emotions and bonding abilities? So are pigs but we don't give them that chance. While Pollan admits that animals do feel pain he says that it is not equal to human suffering and should not be viewed as such because their pain is not "amplified by distinctly human emotions such as regret, self-pity, shame, humiliation, and dread." This I just don't buy as an excuse to eat animals. So I looked to see what others were saying about it animal feelings. I came across Arran Stibbe's article [...] of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies group. Stibbe write this: Undoubtedly there are situations where animals feel emotions similar to humans feelings of humiliation, but it seems anthropomorphic to assume that other animals experience dignity and its loss in the same way that humans do. Perhaps, in many cases, the animal in question is feeling pain and distress rather than a loss of dignity. However, looking at the other side, the human side, it is clear that strategic attempts to humiliate another party differ little whether that party is human or not. It is the same cultural script found throughout the human world: words and actions are used to systematically lower the social status of one party in order to feed the other party's desire for superiority. The mastery and control of animals, demonstrated through confining them, distorting their bodies, or making them perform unnatural feats, delivers at best a very fragile sense of self worth. The fragility occurs because the very act of having to humiliate another in order to gain a sense of self-worth simultaneously reveals deep insecurity. And here is something I can agree with. Ok Pollan - so humans and animals don't experience the world in the same way - I will give you that. But does that mean we should take advantage of them? That we should inflict pain on them just because their experience of pain is different from ours? Stibbe's article also made me realize what I was trying to grasp as I read Pollan's "arguments" against Peter Singer's points and while I gritted my teeth through Pollan's admission that he "pities" vegetarians. Pollan is insecure. Really insecure obviously. He goes so far as to taunt vegans in the section The Vegan Utopian by saying "the farmer would point out to the vegan that even she has a 'serious clash of interests' with other animals. The grain that the vegan eats is harvested with a combine that shreds field mice, while the farmer's tractor wheel crushes woodchucks in their burrows and his pesticides drop songbirds from the sky." Really Pollan? Really? So it's all or nothing is it? Are you suggesting we adopt the "no shadow" diet now if we really want to be vegan? And why is the vegan a "she"? Is that to underline the opinion that you have that "animal people" are sentimental and out of touch with reality? He goes on to say that "if our goal is to kill as few animals as possible people should probably try to eat the largest possible animal that can live on a the least cultivated land: grass-finished steaks for everyone." Oh how convenient seeing as though you obviously love eating steak. I don't think you really thought this one out. You just let your stomach do the thinking. Unsurprisingly he decides to go through with the pig hunt and finds in the end a mixed bag of pride, shame, elation, and disgust. But not so much disgust that when he smells the leg of pig roasting that he can't bring himself to say no. The most disappointing part of this book. There is no conclusion. He doesn't give us much of anything. He lamely closes out the book with a description of his last meal and thanks the people that made it possible and ....that's it. For as many times throughout the book as he urges us to look at, really look at what we are eating, Pollan fails to see the meal in front of him for what it is, the rotting decomposing corpse of another living species. Or I suppose he does - but chooses to accept that and keep on chewing. So what are we left to think? He admits that both the McDonald's meal in the beginning of the book and the hunted boar meal at the end of his book are unrealistic - and should perhaps only be indulged once a year. His disdain for the vegetarian diet certainly doesn't lead me to believe that he would promote that option. So we are left with the Whole Foods option and the grass fed animals. Now maybe I'm wrong about this but I'm willing to bet that those two options are the foods that Pollan was probably already eating given the fact that he admits to shopping at Whole Foods and lives in Berkeley, which is known for its foody, local, natural, somewhat elitist cuisine. Unfortunately - American's interested in the subject, perhaps questioning their impact on the environment, their relationship to the animals they eat - will learn a good deal of information about this book. But at the end they will be able to reassure themselves that no one is asking them to give up anything really. No one is trying to "trick" them into thinking vegetarianism or even just eating a heck of a lot less meat can still lend itself to delicious and varied food (I eat a wider variety of food now, with animal products stripped out, than i ever did before). And worst of all, they will probably walk around parroting Pollan talking about how out of touch vegetarians are and may even go so far to say they too pity us. As you can see, Im confused about this book. Pollan is a masterful storyteller. His writing style is enjoyable. He does quite a bit of research on both sides of the issue. But, for me, I can't get myself behind a book written by someone so insecure that they attack other who are doing someone that he obviously just doesn't have the selflessness or the courage to do. He's too concerned with being ostracized at a dinner party to really look at all the information he has gathered and follow it to it's logical conclusion.

So much to learn in this fascinating book that is beautifully written.

This book is amazing. I recently graduated from University with a degree in Nutrition and though we spent a good amount of time studying policies, this book delved into the realism of the situation from a more consumer-friendly standpoint. At one point in the book, I almost cried I felt so bad about the way my food is produced. This isn't what I'd call a bad thing, but I never realized that for every calorie in a boxed/bagged salad about 50 calories of fossil fuel is consumed getting it from farm to fork. So we're spending more energy than what we're getting from our food. Huge eye opener. There are many great parts to this book and I really like Pollan's point of view. He doesn't seem to mix in a huge emotion so that you feel like you're reading somebody's opinion only. He stays quite neutral and explains who is benefiting from each type/realm of food production. Overall, loving this book, will probably read again, recommend to friends, and definitely will read more of his books.

Pollan no suele fallar, tiene un estilo fácil de leer y agradecido que hace que las páginas del libra fluyan. Nos da unas pinceladas del sistema agroalimentario de USA desde dentro que a veces asustan. Muy recomendable como ensayo sobre lo que es y lo que debería ser importante en la alimentación, Lo compré de segunda mano en una librería de USA (estado: como nuevo) y aunque me tardó en llegar, la comunicación con el vendedor fue excelente y al libro le faltaba el precinto para ser nuevo, no creo ni que lo hubieran leído una vez

'Du bist, was du isst.' - Doch was essen wir, in der industrialisierten Welt heute eigentlich? Welche Beziehung haben wir zu unserem Essen, woher kommt es, auf welchem Weg wird es hergestellt und wie beeinflusst es das Leben jener, die sich damit beschäftigen, dass wir unsere Steaks, unser Obst, unseren Salat auf den Teller bekommen? Wie kommt es, dass es bei Essen mehr als bei vielen anderen Gegenständen des täglichen Lebens im allgemeinen mehr auf Preis als auf Qualität drauf ankommt? Michael Pollan ist Journalist und um sich dem Thema Essen, dem Thema Ernährung und vor allem der Beziehung des Menschens zu seinem Essen anzunähern, hat er vier Mahlzeiten, ja eigentlich vier Nahrungsketten verfolgt: von dem Moment, in dem ein paar Photonen von der Sonne Energie bereitstellen bis zu dem Moment, in dem die Menschen das Endprodukt der Nahrungskette zu sich nehmen. Dabei ist er der Frage nachgegangen, wie Essen heute produziert wird, welche Auswirkungen das auf Mensch, Pflanze, Tier, Ökonomie und Ökologie hat und welche Beziehung die Menschen zu ihrem Essen haben, das heute mehr denn je seine Bedeutung verliert und zur bloßen Bedürfnisbefriedigung verkommt. Die vier verfolgten Mahlzeiten bestehen aus: - Industrial Food: ein McDonald's-Menü, dessen Ursprung die endlosen Maisfelder Iowas sind - dieser Mais liefert ca. 70% der Rohstoffe für ein komplettes McDonald's-Menü - Industrial Organic Food: Am Ende ist Bio auch nur ein Label - und in vielen Belangen entsprechen die Praktiken in der "Biobranche" denen der industriellen Nahrungsmittelerzeugung recht genau. - The Pasture: das vielleicht schönste Kapitel zeigt eine Farm, auf der durch intensive Mischbewirtschaftung ohne jeden Dünger, ohne Pestizide und nur durch die Symbiose vieler verschiedener Organismen glückliches, gesundes Essen hergestellt wird - befriedigt die bukolischen Bedürfnisse eines jeden Lesers, die wohl tief in uns stecken... - The Woods: am Ende beschließt der Autor, sich noch eine Mahlzeit selbst zu erlegen: durch Jagen, durch Sammeln, durch Pflücken. Das Buch ist nicht nur unglaublich interessant, sondern auch sehr unterhaltsam, ja oft einfach nur witzig zu lesen, vor allem aber bietet es Einblicke, Überlegungen und Denkanstöße ohne moralischen Zeigefinger, die einem endlich mal das 'big picture' erkennen lassen. Schon lange nicht mehr hat mich ein Sachbuch derartig mitgerissen, begeistert und beeindruckt, ich kann es nur jedem (!) ans Herz legen.

This is the best book on foods, eating, vegetarian and nonveg eaters. Its ultimately Corn that domesticate humans and not humans!. Pollan is an outstanding writer with in-depth understanding of subject and ability to present his ideas. Hats off.