Outstanding . . . a wide-ranging invitation to think through the moral ramifications of our eating habits.” — The New Yorker At the very least, I’m sure you were aware that the whole processed food industry is not the greenest choice you can make. Pollan, Michael (2009). The Omnivore's Dilemma: Young Readers Edition. Dial Books. ISBN 978-0803735002. Let's see, things we can't or shouldn't eat: butter, steak, meat, spinach because of the salmonella (or maybe it's only the organic spinach that gets contaminated), apples because of the alar, salt, sugar, fat, any food not bought at a farmer's market, any food bought at a non-union grocery, any food bought at a chain, any food that's not organic, any food that's labeled organic by the USDA because their standards aren't strict enough, kosher food, non-kosher, non-grass fed beef (and now we've learned that grass-fed beef is salmonella contaminated, too -

Due to the reductionin distance that your food travels until it eventuallylands on your plate, less fuel and resources are used, making this the environmentally friendlier alternative. Even if, when Pollan really digs into the ubiquity of corn in North American foods, I couldn't help but thinking of this clip. I prefer to buy honestly priced food, food that isn’t being subsidized by the taxpayer, public health, or the environment. It’s true that not everyone in this country can afford to buy honestly priced food—and we need to find a way to put healthy food in reach of those people. It’s a crime that the cheapest calories in the supermarket are the least healthy ones: added sugar (from corn) and added fat (from corn and soybeans). But that’s because we subsidize those calories—by paying farmers to grow more corn and soybeans than we need. Why don’t we subsidize the healthier calories over in the produce section?

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The book reminded me of many other books. It reminded me of Fast Food Nation, but I think I enjoyed this more (which is really saying something). It reminded me of Orion’s Legacy too, and not just because of the hunting stuff towards the end. This guy is so engaging and interesting. And like any good meal there are general themes and flavours but also many tasty asides. Technology has made foods that were previously seasonal or regional available year round and in all regions. The relationship between food and society, once moderated by culture, is now confused. To teach more about those choices, Pollan describes various food chains that end in human food: industrial food, organic food, and food we forage ourselves; from the source to a final meal, and in the process writes a critique of the American method of eating. 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.

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 New York Times named The Omnivore's Dilemma one of the ten best books of 2006, [7] Additionally, Pollan received a James Beard Award for the work. [8]

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In both The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, Pollan quotes the words of Wendell Berry: “Eating is an agricultural act.” What does Berry mean by this, and why is his message so important to Pollan’s writing? 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. All that being said, there's a lot of useful information, particularly with regard to government policy, and lots of fuel to support the libertarian side of the equation. There is no question that our over reliance on fossil fuels will get us into serious trouble very soon. My favorite weekday meal in the summer would be local salmon grilled on the barbecue with vegetables from the garden—grilled summer squash or broccoli or eggplant. With that we might have soba noodles or rice. And of course wine! We can get a dinner like that on the table in twenty minutes, tops. The corn-based industrial food chain does some things well—it has given us an abundance of cheap food. But an increasing number of Americans recognize the exorbitant costs of cheap food, both to their health and to the environment. In the shadow of our fast food nation, alternative food chains are springing up: organic food companies, Community Supported Agriculture (subscription farms where consumers pay an annual fee to get a weekly box of fresh produce), farmer’s markets, and metropolitan buying clubs.

Economist Tyler Cowen argued, "The problems with Pollan's 'self-financed' meal reflect the major shortcoming of the book: He focuses on what is before his eyes but neglects the macro perspective of the economist. He wants to make the costs of various foods transparent, but this is an unattainable ideal, given the interconnectedness of markets." [2] Originally started as a counter-movement to processed and industrialized food, due to its popularity, organic food as a label hasbeen swept up by the processed food lobby. This is why one of my heroes is Norman Borlaug who virtually single-handedly began the green revolution that increased wheat yields spectacularly ( http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/pe...). He DID something, unlike the Paul Ehrlichs who just ran around making a fortune proclaiming the sky is falling. ALL of Ehrlich's predictions have been wrong because of people like Borlaug. In In Defense of Food, Pollan transitions boldly from narrative to polemic. Taking on a scientific, governmental, and commercial establishment that has focused on individual nutrients rather than the unique benefits of whole foods, Pollan offers three gentle commandments: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. Tautly written and eloquently argued, In Defense of Food shows us how simple—and how strangely complicated—those three little rules can be. Pollan concludes that the fast food meal and the hunter-gatherer meal are "equally unreal and equally unsustainable". [1] He believes that if we were once again aware of the source of our food – what it was, where it came from, how it traveled to reach us, and its true cost – we would see that we "eat by the grace of nature, not industry". [1] On veganism [ edit ]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. A gripping delight . . . This is a brilliant, revolutionary book with huge implications for our future and a must-read for everyone. And I do mean everyone.” — The Austin Chronicle One of Pollan's major arguments about the organic farming industry is that it gives people the false idea that, by definition, organic products come from picturesque open pastures.

Pollan also shows a number of instances in which government policies have apparently worsened the crisis in our food culture. What do you think should be the proper role of government in deciding how we grow, process, and eat our food? The challenge is to know what food is and isn’t, because if you’re eating food, you’re probably going to be okay. In Defense of Food offers several handy tests for distinguishing between food and food products. For example, if your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize something as food, it probably isn’t. If it contains more than five ingredients, or contains high fructose corn syrup, or has ingredients you can’t pronounce, it probably isn’t food. 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.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

At the end of In Defense of Food, Pollan offers a series of recommendations for improved eating. Which, if any, do you intend to adopt in your own life? An eater’s manifesto . . . [Pollan’s] cause is just, his thinking is clear, and his writing is compelling. Be careful of your dinner!” — The Washington Post Q. You recommend shopping at farmers’ markets or joining a CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) where you get a share of a local farmer’s produce on a regular basis. But is this practical for most people in this country? What if you don’t live in an area that doesn’t have these opportunities? I cannot refrain from one last minor note: People's Park was not created in the way the author envisions, as some sort of idealistic new organic food plot, but rather as a provocation by a group of radicals hoping to produce that over-reaction - from the university, and ultimately from the numbskull governor - that, in fact, resulted, which was admitted later by the organizers. Parenthetically, I know - I was there. Oh those beautiful eggs! The difference is night and day- the color, the richness, the fat content."