Jul
16
Review: Omnivore’s Dilemma
Filed Under Eating Healthy, Research, Review
i’ve talked about Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma before, but since I recently reread it, I thought I would officially review it here on 60 in 3.
What Is This Book All About?
The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a book about food. It’s not a diet book, it’s not a nutrition book and it’s not a healthy eating book. It is simply a book about food, where it comes from and how it gets to our table. The book seeks to make you aware of what you’re eating and why it’s on your plate.
What Is The Omnivore’s Dilemma
First off, what the heck is the title supposed to mean? The omnivore’s dilemma deals with an issue faced by all creatures who can eat a variety of foods. Simply put, faced with many choices, we’re left wondering which is the best one. That’s not a problem faced by creatures with a simpler diet. For example, the Koala, which can only eat Eucalyptus leaves, rarely wakes up in the morning thinking “what should I eat today?” Carnivores, who eat only meat, usually don’t have a problem picking out a proper dinner dish. It’s us omnivores who need to make decisions each time we eat. For humans, that’s especially bad since we’re faced with an incredible variety of foods, many of them bad for us.
What’s In The Book?
The book is divided into three sections, each of which follows a different food chain from raw materials to consumption of a meal. The first section looks at industrialized food and how it goes from corn field to finished product. The second section follows the “organic” food chain from farm to plate. Finally, the third section looks at a meal completely foraged and collected by the author, with all components being personally obtained. Each section includes a lot of information on why this food chain exists, how it came into being, what the various issues or problems with it are and what kind of impact this food chain has on the world around us.
The book is very personal by the way. It is not scientific nor is it cut and dry. In each section the author digs in and really gets involved with the food chain he’s examining. Whether it is by working on a corn farm in section one, slaughtering a chicken in section two or going foraging for mushrooms in section three, Pollan gets up and close and personal with his food in every possible way. That’s part of what makes this book so great, it takes a process which is often impersonal and alien and puts it into terms that are meaningful and easy to understand. It makes us relate to our food, which I think is an incredibly valuable endeavor.
Section 1 - The industrial food chain
Pollan starts this section at the most logical point, the corn field. Corn is the foundation on which the American industrial food chain is built and Pollan follows it from the field where it is grown and harvested to the place where it is most commonly served, the American fast food restaurant, McDonald’s in this case. Pollan includes quite a bit of history on how corn came to dominate the American culinary landscape and what the impact has been on our wallets and waistlines. Along the way, he visits a factory beef farm to show a bit about modern meat production. It’s clear that Pollan is not really fond of this food production chain and he makes a very good case for how it hurts us in a variety of ways. If you’re not angry at your government by the end of this section, you may want to go back and reread it 
Section 2 - The “organic” food chain
Here Pollan follows organic food from field to plate. I put organic in quotes because Pollan makes a point of saying that the term organic is a bit loose. It can refer to a gorgeous little family farm in the middle of the woods or it can refer to a very industrial facotry that’s almost like the processed food chain he examined in section 1. Again, Pollan presents a lot of background material on how this organic food chain came to exist and how various parts of it function.
Section 3 - The foraged meal
This final section was the least practical but also the most interesting. Here, Pollan talks about a meal he foraged himself. He grew the vegetables, he foraged the mushrooms and yes, he hunted the meat, specifically, wild California pig. Pollan gets philosophical in some areas of this section, talking about animal rights and the morality of being a carnivore. By the way, Pollan himself is not vegetarian, nor does he advocate it as a lifestyle, he’s just discussing the topic as yet another thing to consider when you eat.
Of all three sections, I enjoyed this one the most. Sure, it probably didn’t have a lot of information I’m going to use in the future, but it really made me think about my food, which is the point of the book. This is the most personal of the food chains, one in which you are the entire food chain and nothing stands between you and your food. What you gather is what you eat.
So Why Is This Book Important?
Because we’ve forgotten what food means. Too many of us see food and but don’t actually see everything’s that’s gone into that food. We’ve forgotten or never knew how that food got to us. We don’t think about all the work and effort that went into making the food and getting it to us. We don’t think about the impact of our decisions and we fail to consider how a simple choice like what to have for dinner can have wide reaching consequences on the world around us.
Food is 50% of health (the other 50% being exercise). Something this important shouldn’t be ignored. We focus too much about nutrition and calories but we’re never really aware of what food is and where it came from. We think of the differences between meat and vegetables but we don’t really think of the difference between this tomato and that one. We worry about the amount of carbon our cars put out but we don’t think about the resources it took to put that steak on our plate.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma doesn’t try to get you to go vegetarian, it doesn’t tell you to start growing your own vegetables and it doesn’t preach about proper nutrition, it just wants you to be aware of what you’re eating. The books seeks to make eating a conscious decision rather than a mindless activity and I think it’s a spectacular success. After reading this book I can no longer walk into a McDonald’s without thinking about corn. I can no longer look at a package that says organic without questioning the meaning of the word. I don’t even think of hunters the same way I did before and, for the first time in my life, I have a real desire to learn how to cook. In all possible ways, Michael Pollan’s book has made me more aware of what’s on my plate, which to me is the whole point.
If you’re interested in your health then you should be interested in your food, and if you’re interested in learning more about your food, then this book is a must read.
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There are very few books that have affected me as much as this one. If you’re interested, here’s the link to Amazon. Buy it online, check it out from the library, find it at your nearest used book store or borrow it from a friend. Whatever you do, go and read this book.
Amazon link:
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4 Responses to “Review: Omnivore’s Dilemma”
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Thanks for the review, I think I’ll track down that book. I’ve always been very awear of where food comes from, and as a consequence grow a great deal of my own.
Good review…I am very grateful created as omnivore
. Human have freedom to choose how and what they eat. This book is great guidance to control the freedom.
I just finished reading this book on Monday evening and thoroughly enjoyed it & appreciated any lack of “preachiness” in it. I definitely recommend it. One point of note in the first section of the book: corn prices were A LOT lower when he wrote the book. It would be interesting to see how the farmer in Iowa is doing with the higher prices (even though fuel & fertilizer prices are also substantially higher now, too). Great review of the book, too.
Thank you for a great review. This book is one of several at the core of what I’m doing at my blog as well. We’re changing our habits to this approach, including starting our own garden, eating real food, and eating moderately. The result for me? I’ve lost 26 lbs this year simply by eating real food in moderation - no plans, low fat, low carb, or extreme exercise.
Thanks again,
Metroknow