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

This was a big book full of intensity and good detail. In parts it was almost poetic. I found I could not do it justice by summarizing the author's ideas in my own words, so I am going to do a lot of quoting. Believe me, there is much more, and you should read the book.The author contends that not only excess corn--and all the unnecessary products from it--and the introduction of GMO seed have wrecked havoc with our farm system as well as, perhaps, our body's health system. "By the 1980s the diversified family farm was history in Iowa, and corn was king" (p. 39). A lack of diversification meant more plagues of insects and crop diseases. Amazingly, the author states that "the farmers in Iowa...don't respect corn [but] will tell you in disgust that the plant has become a `welfare queen'." Hybrid flowers and tomatoes sound great, but hybrid corn consumes more polluting fertilizer than any crop (p 41). Iowa, which was once our breadbasket, now imports 80 percent of its food--and this was in 2006.The world would be much less populated had a scientist not figured out how to "make" nitrogen apart from nature doing so. About 60 percent of American commodity corn is fed to livestock which in times past spent most of their lives grazing on grasses (p 66). "The urbanization of America's animal population [in feed lots] would never have taken place if not for the advent of cheap, federally- subsidized corn" (67). Even farm salmon are now being fed on excess biomass corn (p 67). E-coli bacteria thrives in the feedlot cattle--40 percent carry it in their gut; they produce a toxin that destroys human kidneys.Concentrated feed lots take the youngish cows off their natural diet of grass and force feed them corn, which they would not otherwise eat. Corn just does not work with their stomachs and they are prone to illnesses for which antibiotics are used.Producers believe price is the overriding issue when it comes to food purchasing, so producing a "product" as cheaply as possible is what guides most of our feed lots. For healthy products to healthy people you must buy locally: fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy. "Artificial manures [synthetic fertilizers] lead inevitably to artificial nutrition, artificial food, artificial animals, and finally to artificial men and women" (pp 128, 148)."The simplist way to capture the sun's energy in a form animals can use is by growing grass" (p 189). "For example, if the 16 million acres now being used to grow corn to feed cows,...became well-managed pasture, that would remove 14 billion pounds of carbon from the atmosphere each year, the equivalent of taking four million cars off the road" (p 198)."The government writes no subsidy checks to grass farmers. Grass farmers, who buy little...pesticides and fertilizers, do little to support agribusiness or the pharmaceutical industry or big oil" (p 201).The best thing for our health and our animal's is "relationship marketing," buying directly from farmers or co-ops. You must become a non-Barcode person as much as possible when it comes to food. You have to decide if you want to buy honestly priced food or irresponsibly priced (and polluted) food (p. 240, 241). "Our food system depends on consumers not knowing much about [their food] beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner. Cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing" (p 245).If the American Joe and Jane don't push for change, America's chefs may "be leading a movement to save small farmers and reform America's food system" (p 245). This is going to be a real MOVEMENT, perhaps along with the following:1. anti-globalization ("globalization [or global capitalization] proposes to sacrifice [our ability to feed ourselves] in the name of efficiency and economic growth" [p 256])2. anti-genetically modified crops3. anti-patented seeds pushed by the WTO (the World Trade Organization)4. Slow Food, which defends traditional food cultures against the global tide of homogenization"A successful local food economy implies not only a new kind of food producer, but a new kind of eater, one who regards finding, preparing and preserving food as one of the pleasures of life rather than a chore" (p 259)."A growing body of scientific research indicates that pasture substantially changes the nutritional profile of chicken and eggs, as well as beef and milk. ... [Also] as it turns out, the fats in the flesh of grass eaters are the best kind for us to eat" (p 267).I only enjoyed Chapters 1-14 (Sections I and II); the final Chapters of 15-20 (Section III) I found somewhat off point to the previous sections. You can ignore it and get the point/s of the author quite powerfully, even though this final section accounts for one-third of the book.

I almost never write reviews, but after the amount of time I devoted to reading this book and the gratefulness I have to Mr. Pollan for researching and sharing his knowledge and wisdom within it, I feel obligated.The book is well organized into Contents of 3 Parts: Industrial (Corn), Pastoral (Grass), and Personal (Forest). I have no idea why "Personal" was chosen over the term Hunter-Gatherer, as that was what he was going for. You may have picked up on that the Contents are in reverse chronological order, a timeline from current to pre-historic. In case you are wondering what "A Natural History of Four Meals" refers to, it is those three aforementioned Parts with Pastoral being subdivided into Big Organic/Industrial Organic and Small/Local organic. Pollan's admirable and ambitious goal is to figure out how our food in the USA gets from earth to plate in each category.Part I - Industrial has a lot of eye-opening information in regards to farming, ranching, and the science. Even with all of that great information I found it the hardest part to get through as Pollan beats the metaphorical horse to death lambasting the industrial food system. I didn't make it through Part I the first time I tried reading it 10 years ago and now I can see why. Even though it is the shortest of the 3 parts there is a redundancy and negativity where I felt it should have been edited down even further.Part II - Pastoral is the longest of the 3 parts and was my favorite part of the book. I grew up on a farm/ranch and some of the descriptions and emotions that he conveyed took me right back onto my family farm. I don't think it would be much of a reach to assume Pollan a lefty/liberal city slicker having grown up in the New England, moved to California and teaching at Berkley, but in his writings of the "grass farmer" Joel you can tell how much respect and admiration he has for the man even though their personal and political beliefs may be worlds apart. I also thought Pollan's critique and DILEMMAs he posed in this section led to some of his best writing in the book.Part III - Personal was a excellent conclusion to the book, though it does have a completely different tone to it. The first two Parts (Industrial and Pastoral) are an examination of the US food system. This last part is Pollan doing his best to recreate the hunter-gatherer food lifestyle while living in urban California, in hopes that it will add to the big picture he painted for us in the first two parts. As someone who grew up on a farm hunting it was refreshing to have a novice from the city, who likely looked down on us in someway, dive fully into the hunter outdoorsmen experience to understand our way of life. I'd be proud to buy Mr. Pollan a beer congratulating him on his first successful hunt. I also found the chapters on the mysterious mushrooms and preparing the food educational and entertaining. Angelo in particular seems like pretty cool, kickass dude.A few critiques:Mr. Pollan frequently uses personification when talking about plants and their evolution, like when he makes statements that corn chose us as much as we chose it. That's not how it works and I found it to be a distracting and annoying repeated offense.Finished in late 2005, the book could use an update on the farming end. The farmers had a nice run for a stretch, lets say 2009-2015. Things have turned really ugly in both the cattle markets and commodity markets since then. It would be nice to see an update of why things turned around for the better, then flipped again. And we could always use a few more wise words from Mr. Joel Salatin.Looking forward to reading and reviewing "In Defense of Food".

Uno dei libri più interessanti che abbia letto quest'anno. Ben scritto, con temi più che attuali per il mondo in cui viviamo. Assolutamente consigliato!

Wer kann, sollte das Buch in Originalsprache lesen. Erschütternd, wie kaputt unser Ernährungssystem ist. Wie weit entfernt wir von nachhaltig oder gesund sind. Wie krank es macht, wie sehr es Tierquälerei belohnt. Ich hatte selten in einem Buch so viele Aha-Erlebnisse und neue Erkenntnisse. Es ist von 2003, aber immer noch mehr als relevant. Es behandelt den amerikanischen Lebensmittelmarkt (konventionell durch Betrachtung des Corn Belt, bio/organic durch Big Bio), aber auf dem zumindest deutschen Agrarmarkt ist es mit Sicherheit anwendbar.

Livro excelente! Aborda de uma maneira consistente a questão da alimentação do ser humano!A carne e os vegetais.A carne, envolvendo o problema moral da matança dos animais e de como isso ocorre de maneira cruel nos grande conglomerados industriais dos Estados Unidos da América.O milho, como alimento preponderante na alimentação mundial de hoje em dia!O capim como melhor alimento para o gado e para os galináceos, daí derivando uma melhor qualidade de suas carnes!A fazenda POLYFACE, como modelo de fazenda criadora de animais para corte, em contraposição às fazendas tipo campos de concentração industriais fecais, dos imensos confinamentos de animais.E, uma declaração/elogio sobre fazendas de produtores artesanais :"A pura e simples alegria de viver é um dos grandes benefícios propiciados por uma fazenda."

This is the second book I have read from this author, and I intend to keep on reading his other titles as his style is superb. I am gaining a wealth of insights into the industrial food production. I didn’t use to eat ultra processed foods before, but now I’ll make it my business to avoid them completely as a question of principle.

I am a fan of this writer and have got other books written by him which have been very helpful for my work. this is a new book and I am just beginning to read it. but like all his other books this too is a very good addition to my book shelf. thank you.