The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals See Latest Price & Discount EAN: 9781594200823 Editorial Reviews: Book Description The bestselling author of The Botany of Desire explores the ecology of eating to unveil why we consume what we consume in the twenty-first century "What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't-which mushrooms should be avoided, for example, and which berries we can enjoy. Today, as America confronts what can only be described as a national eating disorder, the omnivore's dilemma has returned with an atavistic vengeance. The cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet has thrown us back on a bewildering landscape where we once again have to worry about which of those tasty-looking morsels might kill us. At the same time we're realizing that our food choices also have profound implications for the health of our environment. The Omnivore's Dilemma is bestselling author Michael Pollan's brilliant and eye-opening exploration of these little-known but vitally important dimensions of eating in America. Pollan has divided The Omnivore's Dilemma into three parts, one for each of the food chains that sustain us: industrialized food, alternative or "organic" food, and food people obtain by dint of their own hunting, gathering, or gardening. Pollan follows each food chain literally from the ground up to the table, emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the species we depend on. He concludes each section by sitting down to a meal--at McDonald's, at home with his family sharing a dinner from Whole Foods, and in a revolutionary "beyond organic" farm in Virginia. For each meal he traces the provenance of everything consumed, revealing the hidden components we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods reflects our environmental and biological inheritance. We are indeed what we eat-and what we eat remakes the world. A society of voracious and increasingly confused omnivores, we are just beginning to recognize the profound consequences of the simplest everyday food choices, both for ourselves and for the natural world. The Omnivore's Dilemma is a long-overdue book and one that will become known for bringing a completely fresh perspective to a question as ordinary and yet momentous as What shall we have for dinner? Customer Reviews: Review #1: Fascinating! 2007-03-20 I grew up in farm country and have long had vague concerns about how national farm policy affects our food chain, but this book spelled it out for me in a way that was concrete and, really, life-changing. Bring on the grass-fed beef! Review #2: it takes one to know one 2007-03-18 only a hyperintellectual urbanic west coast hipster can take down one of west coast urban hipsterisms main exports: the 'supermarket pastoral' marketing machine that is whoring out the remnants of the counter culture. he gives us a bit o' insight into the workings of the food industry. process your food unnecessarily, and you make money off it. sell it raw, you get butkus. thats true whether youre selling chicken mcnuggets or organic olive oil and tarragon potato chips for 7 dollars a bag. walk into any 'natural foods store' and youll get the picture instantly. also, organic agriculture has no revolution as far as labor goes, and 'organic' and 'free range' are things that can be nitpicked and rules that have loopholes - so that if money can come from it, questionable practices will follow, and they do. the whole 'dinner' at the end made me cringe at the potential awkwardness of it, but i have to give the guy credit, he has huge brass cojones. Review #3: The American Food System Jefferson wanted 2007-03-15 A well written and researched book examining the food system we have with glimpses of what an alternative food system might look like. The farm that excites Mr. Pollan is Polyface Farms in Virginia- grass fed beef, free range chickens, happy pigs. Well... I grew up near Amish country and to me.... Polyface Farms sounds like an Amish farm. No alcohol, no caffeine, no TV, slaughter you own meats, be self sufficient. The thing is, Amish people have 5 or 6 kids to help work the farm and most families have a couple of those kids leave the Amish life for the attractions of American culture. Farm work is physically demanding and almost requires a vow of poverty. During my father's generation, farm boys all over the US were delighted to leave the farm and work in offices or factories. A mass return to self sustaining farms is not likely and would not be able to feed our big cities. Mr. Pollan's strongest point, and one should be the key focus of all concerned citizens, is that the whole industrial food system is based on cheap fossil fuels. Every input to industrial farming, from the fertilizers to the tractor fuel through the processing and marketing uses petroleum. The final cost for a calorie of food is more than 10 calories of fossil fuel. The major weakness of the book is the lack of discussion of the ethanol business and how the additional demand for corn as an ethanol input is exacerbating the trends discussed... burnout of the land, overuse of fertilizer, and non-sustainability. Likely Omnivore's Dilemma was written before the corn-ethanol nexus was so apparent. This is a great book which repays close reading. Review #4: A must read! 2007-03-08 If you are interested in where your food comes from and what it goes through to get to your table, you must read this book. It is better than well researched, and very readable. I would recommend this book to anyone who eats food in this country. Review #5: Fascinating Book 2007-03-08 I originally bought this book after seeing a piece in the NYT by this author in which he very succinctly summarized my philosophy when it comes to diet (eat food, mostly plants, not too much). I would add the word "real" before food just for emphasis since so much of the stuff people buy is not real food. Anyway, it turns out this book is not about that question, although there is much to gain along those lines. Pollan does and excellent job of tracing the origins of four meals (fast food, industrial organic ala Whole Foods, sustainable agriculture meal, and a hunted/gathered meal). I learned more from this book about what I eat and where it comes from and how it was produced than anything I have touched in the past 30 years - the industrial organic meal was especially revealing. As a result of this book I have been motivated to make substantial changes in what I buy, who I buy it from and how I buy it. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in environmental issues, personal health, and/or how our food system works or doesn't work in this country.