Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore\'s Dilemma.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. New York: Penguin, 2006.

We have, according to Michael Pollan, a "national eating disorder" (Pollan 2). Americans have grown so disassociated from the ways in which food is produced that they have lost a sense of what food really is. The title of Pollan's 2006 manifesto the Omnivore's Dilemma underlines the paradox that all human beings must face: because they are human, they are confronted with a seemingly infinite array of choices of what they can consume. Theoretically, a McDonald's meal is edible because a human being's stomach acids are capable of breaking down a fries, burger, and milkshake. But Pollan asks: what does that meal do to our bodies -- and to our environment and the larger food chain? "When you can eat just about anything nature has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the potential foods on offer are liable to sicken or kill you" (Pollan 3).

Many animals, such as the koala bear, only need one type of food to thrive. The koala bear only needs eucalyptus leaves to eat a balanced diet. In contrast, if human beings eat a very limited diet, they can grow extremely sick. One of the reasons for the explosion of obesity and over diet and lifestyle-related diseases, argues Pollan, is because we are unintentionally limiting ourselves to a nutrient-poor way of eating. Although food is packaged in many unique and attractive ways, the distinction is only on the surface, and due to clever packaging, rather than actual substance. Corn, one of the main commodity crops of subsidized agriculture, is everywhere. Sweet foods have high fructose corn syrup in them; corn sugar is even hidden in savory foods to enhance flavor in foods like burgers and tomato sauce. Corn is the "building block" of industrial food, particularly the ability of corn to be converted into high-fructose corn syrup, which is less expensive and sweeter than regular sugar (Pollan 88-89).

Pollan divides his book into three sections, or three different aspects of the food production cycle: industrial, pastoral, and personal. Industrial food processing is based upon the use of corn, and Pollan notes how government policy has made it cheap and easy to fatten animals for slaughter in feed lots, although the animals cannot digest corn unless they are given antibiotics to do so. The availability of cheap corn enables highly processed and caloric foods, from chips to snack cakes, to be shelf-stable and sold for pocket change. Food, which used to take up a tremendous percentage of a family's budget, is now quite inexpensive, but at tremendous cost to human health. One of Pollan's most controversial arguments is that food is too cheap. The methods used to make food inexpensive also make food harmful to the body. "You can buy honestly priced-food or you can buy irresponsibility priced food" that is grown with respect to the needs of animals, the environment, and human wellness (Pollan 243).

Although Pollan condemns conventional agriculture, he also notes that even organically-labeled food is often grown in a manner that is not much better for the environment in terms of its carbon footprint -- the regulations upon what constitutes organic food can be quite lax, and some foods that use some pesticides that are grown locally and sold in farmer's markets might not be technically organic, but leave less of a carbon footprint. As part of the research for his book, Pollan visits a commercial organic farm, which is just as mechanized as a standard commercial farm, and just as large and labor-intensive. Commercial agriculture, Pollan implies, grew to satisfy a marketing demand, not out of ideology. Consumers are gradually growing uncomfortable with the evident environmental implications of their choices and wish to 'do something,' even though they are unsure as to what that 'something' should be, and many buy commercial organic food to assuage their guilt.

Pollan is most approving of a farmer in Virginia who runs an entirely sustainable farm, using no pesticides -- even the chickens pecking at the manure break down the animal feces to fertilize the soil. This farmer, Joel Salatin, describes himself as a fundamentalist Christian who is spearheading a 'back to the land' movement, and hopes to raise a farm how he believes God intended livestock and produce to be raised. Because of the quality of the food Salatin produces, based upon traditional agricultural methods, people of all ideologies from the surrounding area come to the farm to buy meat and produce. Along with the meal that Pollan kills and cooks like a hunter-gatherer, he regards this truly natural farm as the ideal standard for human all consumption. The food tastes better as well as makes him feel better about being an omnivore. (Pollan briefly entertains the idea of becoming a vegetarian, but rejects it because of his affection for meat and because he feels it shuts him out of mainstream culture to such a great degree).