Omnivore\'s Dilemma \"What Should We

Omnivore's Dilemma

"What should we have for dinner?" It is the question Michael Pollan asks at the beginning of his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. Pollan wrote the book partly in response to the "carbophobia" that seized the nation soon after the start of the millennium, supplanting bread -- "one of the most ancient and venerable staples of human life" (Pollan, 2006, p. 1) -- in favor of a high-protein and often high-fat diet. Animals, he points out, instinctively know what to eat. Human animals have this instinctive knowledge too, but we live in a culture where a bewildering array of foodstuffs is available to us. The dilemma is to figure out how to eat what is best for us. Recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control show that one-third of American adults are obese. Approximately 17% of children and adolescents are obese as well, a figure that has tripled since 1980 (CDC, 2011). It is a dilemma that has serious consequences if we make the wrong choices.

Humans, like every other living creature, take part in the food chain. Unlike non-human creatures, we have learned to "substantially modify the food chain" (Pollan, 2006, p. 6) with cooking, hunting, farming, food preservation, and industrialization. Pollan's purpose in writing the book was to trace several food chains from beginning to end. He believes it is essential that people understand where their food comes from and, hopefully, learn to make informed and healthy choices. He advocates getting as close to the food source as possible. We not only eat healthier foods but we reduce our carbon footprint by reducing costs associated with manufacturing, processing and transportation.

In Part One, Pollan looks at the plethora of products available in today's supermarkets and the ubiquitousness of one plant, corn. Corn is a grass native to Central America and unknown in other parts of the world before 1492 (Pollan, 2006, p. 23). After the Native Americans taught colonists to plant corn, they quickly learned to appreciate its value and versatility. Corn was ready to eat, could be dried and stored, and could be ground into flour. The grain fed people and animals. Dried stalks because heating fuel. Mashed, fermented corn could be made into whisky and beer. It was a commodity that sustained people in many ways.

For nearly 450 years, corn remained an important staple that nourished humans and animals. It provided some by-products that were also considered quite useful. A huge change occurred after World War II, with the advent of chemical fertilizers. The government was looking to dump chemicals no longer needed for defense manufacturing. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it changed farming -- and eating -- forever. The corn plant readily used these synthetics, growing prodigiously and eliminating the need for farmers to rotate crops. The government, Wall Street, and private industry capitalized on the bounty, ultimately resulting in the omnipresence of corn, in one form or another, in the American diet. As an example, Pollan cites McDonald's popular Chicken McNugget, which contains thirty-eight ingredients, thirteen of which are derived from corn (Pollan, 2006, p. 113).

In Part Two, Pollan chronicles his experiences living and working on Polyface Farm, an organic farm in Virginia. Pollan was impressed with the farm's symbiosis. For example, cattle graze on grass, chickens eat grubs and larvae out of cowpats and thus provide nitrogen-rich, natural fertilizer so the grass can continue to grow. Polyface Farm is an alternative in almost every way to the highly industrialized farm about which Pollan wrote in Part One.

Pollan enjoyed preparing a meal of foods with which he had a direct connection during his time on the farm. He recalled, with distaste, the slaughter of the chickens for the meal -- "a fairly brutal transaction between animals" (Pollan, 2006, p. 264). Pollan cooked the chickens over a gas grill but flavored the meet with applewood smoke he created with the help of apple trees from the farm. Pollan prepared heirloom corn, fertilized by chickens, and used fresh eggs to make a dessert souffle.

Pollan states that he has duplicated the meal in his home kitchen on a number of occasions, noting that these later versions were not as healthy, or even as tasty, as the original. Grass-fed meet, milk and eggs have less fat than the products of grain-fed animals, but higher levels of omega-3s -- essential for human health -- as well as another fatty acid, conjugated lineoleic acid, thought to aid in weight loss and prevent cancer (Pollan, 2006, p. 267).

During his stint at Polyface Farm, Pollan enjoyed a connection with the land and the food in a way that most people can barely imagine, let alone experience in their own lives. Preparing to write the third part of his book, Pollan wanted to get even closer to the food supply. He wanted to make a dinner prepared wholly from ingredients he personally hunted, gathered, and grew (Pollan, 2006, p. 278). Pollan confessed that, although he had a lifetime's experience raising vegetables and eating from his garden, he had never fired a gun and was equally ill prepared to forage for fungi. He set about learning to do both.

Pollan felt uneasy about hunting after his close proximity to live animals at Polyface Farm, so he was surprised at the initial exhilaration he felt after his first kill. Pollan was soon revolted by the sight of the dead wild pig as it was prepared for consumption and then felt disgusted by the joy he had felt, however briefly, after killing the animal. The whole experience, he found, was "even messier than the moralist thinks" (Pollan, 2006, p. 361). The pig Pollan killed eventually served as the main course of a meal the author dubbed "perfect," not because of its tastes and somewhat exotic menu items but because he procured everything himself.

With the end of this meal comes the end of Pollan's book. He points out the stark contrast between this final meal, prepared at great expense with respect to time and emotion, with a meal from McDonald's he described at the beginning of the book. The meal for which he hunted and foraged is not realistic for most people to try to duplicate. The McDonald's meal, too easily duplicated, is not one he recommends as anything more than an annual treat.

As Pollan noted early in his book, fast food meals are a daily indulgence for many Americans, including children. Although the premise of Pollan's book is the distance between the food sources and end consumers, implications for the nation's health resonate clearly. Pollan does not explicitly say so, but it seems clear that there is a link to obesity and associated health problems and Americans' disconnectedness to the food they eat. It is a cause important to the health care industry. We are what we eat, and Americans are increasingly eating foods that are not good for them. A growing number of people are overweight and, paradoxically, poorly nourished.