Anyone read this? New book by Michael Pollan. Picked it up and am just getting through the first chapter...amazing, scary stuff about industrial farming. I will never look at corn the same way.
Omnivore's Dilemma
- Thread starter OGRipper
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
[Signature]Reviewed by Pamela KaufmanPollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly."Pollan's narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald's lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns into the burgers, becomes the oil that cooks the fries and the syrup that sweetens the shakes and the sodas, and makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients (yikes) in the Chicken McNuggets.Indeed, one of the many eye-openers in the book is the prevalence of corn in the American diet; of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn. Pollan meditates on the freakishly protean nature of the corn plant and looks at how the food industry has exploited it, to the detriment of everyone from farmers to fat-and-getting-fatter Americans. Besides Stephen King, few other writers have made a corn field seem so sinister.Later, Pollan prepares a dinner with items from Whole Foods, investigating the flaws in the world of "big organic"; cooks a meal with ingredients from a small, utopian Virginia farm; and assembles a feast from things he's foraged and hunted.This may sound earnest, but Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over. He's also funny and adventurous. He bounces around on an old International Harvester tractor, gets down on his belly to examine a pasture from a cow's-eye view, shoots a wild pig and otherwise throws himself into the making of his meals. I'm not convinced I'd want to go hunting with Pollan, but I'm sure I'd enjoy having dinner with him. Just as long as we could eat at a table, not in a Toyota. (Apr.)Pamela Kaufman is executive editor at Food & Wine magazine.
Sounds interesting.
I approve!
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
[Signature]Reviewed by Pamela KaufmanPollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly."Pollan's narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald's lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns into the burgers, becomes the oil that cooks the fries and the syrup that sweetens the shakes and the sodas, and makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients (yikes) in the Chicken McNuggets.Indeed, one of the many eye-openers in the book is the prevalence of corn in the American diet; of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn. Pollan meditates on the freakishly protean nature of the corn plant and looks at how the food industry has exploited it, to the detriment of everyone from farmers to fat-and-getting-fatter Americans. Besides Stephen King, few other writers have made a corn field seem so sinister.Later, Pollan prepares a dinner with items from Whole Foods, investigating the flaws in the world of "big organic"; cooks a meal with ingredients from a small, utopian Virginia farm; and assembles a feast from things he's foraged and hunted.This may sound earnest, but Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over. He's also funny and adventurous. He bounces around on an old International Harvester tractor, gets down on his belly to examine a pasture from a cow's-eye view, shoots a wild pig and otherwise throws himself into the making of his meals. I'm not convinced I'd want to go hunting with Pollan, but I'm sure I'd enjoy having dinner with him. Just as long as we could eat at a table, not in a Toyota. (Apr.)Pamela Kaufman is executive editor at Food & Wine magazine.
Sounds interesting.
I approve!
I'll be picking that one up this week, thanks for the heads up!
On a similar topic, if you haven't yet read Fast Food Nation, I suggest you do so.
On a similar topic, if you haven't yet read Fast Food Nation, I suggest you do so.
bjanga said:
While i refuse to get deep into this argument again i have one thing to say. Genetically manipulating food to produce larger crops, or sustain itself over time is far different than putting 38 ingredients into a chicken mcnugget. its not the manipulaiton that is killing us, its the exploitation of food. turing it into a commodity rather than a necessity and trying to stretch it as far as it can go for as little money as possible. Food is being junked up and turned into a fad or trend rather than nurishment for the body. (even all that over priced organic crap)
I might have to check that book out this summer while i'm not reading for school.
Totally agree. And sadly we have been working hard to change what occurs naturally. Instead of relying on a symbiotic, sustainable and diverse farming model, with rotating crops that need little more than water and light to feed the people and the animals, and animal fertilizer for the crops, we have moved to monoculture in which vast areas are now completely dedicated to one crop. Instead of animal fertilizer (because the animals aren't on the farm anymore), we use petroleum-based fertilizers.laura said:
Yes, instead of relying on sunlight, an essentially limitless resource, we have transformed agriculture to be completely reliant on petroleum. Under the old model, one calorie of energy produced two calories of food. It now takes three or four calories of energy to produce one calorie of food, and we are relying on a non-sustainable energy source to make it happen. Scary huh?
And the commodities that are produced are so plentiful and cheap that they cost more to produce than to sell, so our government pays roughly 50% of many farmer incomes. And because those commodities are cheaper than what animals eat naturally (grass, etc.), we feed them an unnatural mixture of these commodities (mainly corn) along with antibiotics that are needed to allow them to digest the stuff. And because quantity is king, we also pump them full of growth hormones and other goodies. Yummy!
This is all quite different from cross-pollinating some peaches to make juicier peaches.
But ya gotta eat, right? Hence the dilemma.
Ok so I finished this book and just wanted to recommend it again. The author takes you on a journey that begins with a McDonald's meal (exploring industrial agriculture in the process), goes through an "industrial organic" meal bought at Whole Foods, then on to a "beyond organic" meal from Polyface Farms, then finally to a meal comprised of food he hunts and gathers himself. Good stuff, lots of serious questions with no easy answers. This book taught me a lot about the evolution of our food sytems and the true cost of the things we eat.
I agree. As OGRipper pointed out, technology has allowed us to speed up 'evolution' and move away from sustainability. Interesting contrasts between the selective pressures we exert on plants today and the pressures we exerted 200 or more years ago.laura said: