The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
On the bus to the grocery store to pick up items for tomorrow’s Tibetan-themed Iron Rainbow* dinner, I read the last page of what has become one of my favorite books of all time. Yes, as you may have guessed by the title of this post, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The reasons I loved this book are manifold; and it is the inspiration for starting a literary blog, a venue for my thoughts and reflections on the books I read.
I have wanted to read this book since its publication two years ago, and with Pollan’s recent (by recent I mean January 2008) publication of In Defense of Food, which I also very much want to read, I thought I better get on with it. And I am so glad I did. Over the past 10 days, every chance I got—on the 38L Geary, BART back and forth to the East Bay, Virgin America to JFK, New York subway, Long Island Rail Road, and even Jeep across New York state, I devoured the pages of this nonfiction work of what I would like to call GENIUS. And as I was transporting Pollan wherever I went, I felt the reciprocation; after all, he brought me (and countless other readers, of course) along with him as he went from farm to feedlot to forest, sharing adventures, knowledge, and emotions.
Subtitled “A Natural History of Four Meals”, The Omnivore’s Dilemma explores the production, marketing, and consumption of food in this country, and seeks to figure out what is up with what and how we eat. The book is divided into three parts: Industrial, Pastoral, and Personal. Part I is all about corn and its ubiquity in the industrial production of food (for humans, animals, and cars). Perhaps the most disturbing chapter is titled “The Feedlot: Making Meat”, which gives a very vivid account of what goes down with industrial meat production. Gross. Really, really gross. Part II is all about grass and focuses on what Pollan calls “the pastoral food chain.” Much of this section is set on a farm that raises a variety of animals and crops, where Pollan spent a week working and learning all about how the food is produced in a way that the farmer calls “beyond organic.” In Part III, he sets out to forage for food (meat, plants, and fungus) to make what he calls in the last chapter, the “Perfect Meal.”
What I love most about The Omnivore’s Dilemma is how much it made me think. But I also loved the writing. I had read a couple of articles written by Pollan, and I could tell that I dug his style and mad journalistic skills. But in this book, especially, I savored the beautifully crafted sentences, a seemingly effortless concoction of the choicest words. Yet for all this mastery of language, never once is the writing flowery, stuffy, or pompous.
Throughout, I sensed that Pollan has just the kind of personality that I really enjoy; he seems real and down-to-earth, smart and funny. While he gives us a lot of information, it is written in an accessible and interesting way. It doesn’t sound like he’s pontificating or lecturing; he’s just done the legwork and researched this stuff and is letting us know what’s what. And at the heart of the story is his personal journey, which I found engaging and thought provoking.
Since every issue raised in the book gave me pause for thought and reflection, I’ll just summarize a couple of my major conclusions:
1) Eating foods labeled “organic” is not enough. At least not for me. In a chapter called “Big Organic” Pollan describes the history of organic food movement and the rise of industrial organic food production. While I think organic food is still better than conventional, I will seek produce, eggs, and dairy from smaller, more local farms that go beyond adhering to the USDA organic standards (which aren’t necessarily as strict as they could be.)
2) Industrial meat production and processing is disgusting and abhorrent. I think what disturbs me most is the treatment of animals destined to be someone’s meal here in America. But the environmental impacts of the meat industry are not to be overlooked, either, and another reason I feel happy to be a vegetarian. One thing I really appreciated in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is Pollan’s consideration of the ethics of eating meat (there is a chapter of called “The Ethics of Eating Animals”), especially in light of how it is produced in large scale in this country. As an omnivore, he eats meat and I bet this works to his advantage in conveying the issues related to the production and consumption of meat to a much broader audience than if he were a vegetarian. But I also appreciate how he questions if it’s okay to eat animals and shares with us his process of working this out for himself.
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