This paper critically evaluates Michael Pollan's pastoral ideal as presented in the second section of The Omnivore's Dilemma, focusing on Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm as a model for sustainable, ethical food production. While acknowledging the environmental and health merits of Pollan's argument, the paper challenges the economic feasibility of his vision for average and low-income Americans. It examines issues of cost, geographic access, time constraints, dietary habit formation, and the charge of elitism that critics have leveled at Pollan's "vote with your dollars" philosophy, ultimately concluding that his counsel is wise for upper-middle-class consumers but insufficient as a scalable solution to feeding a modern, diverse nation.
The second section of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma contains his most hopeful and also his most polemical writing. Pollan is a passionate defender of the farming system of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm, which he portrays as an idyllic refuge from both industrial corn-based farming and "big organic" agriculture harnessed to corporate interests. People come from far and wide to buy from Salatin, who raises chicken, beef, and pork in a sustainable, balanced environment. The food tastes better and is better for consumers. However, the question remains whether Pollan's vision of "voting with your dollars" regarding local and truly organic food is economically feasible for most Americans. This paper suggests that although Pollan's ideas are sound with regard to the environment and health, activists who support his vision must address the charge of elitism that has tarred his vision of the future.
According to Pollan, inexpensive food is a "problem." As one commentator notes, "The real problem is that subsidies keep the prices of some, largely mass-produced foods artificially low" (Worthen 2010). Factory farming has made meat cheap enough for even the poor to eat on a regular basis, thanks to corn-finished beef cattle that are forced to eat grain before their stomachs are developed enough to tolerate it but that can be quickly brought to slaughter.
"We've been conditioned by artificially cheap food to be shocked when a box of strawberries costs $3… Eight dollars for a dozen eggs sounds outrageous, but when you think that you can make a delicious meal from two eggs, that's $1.50. It's really not that much when we think of how we waste money in our lives" (Worthen 2010). The idea that eight dollars for a carton of eggs is acceptable seems to fly in the face of the fact that many Americans are simply scraping by. Pollan's vision assumes that Americans have disposable income they are spending on what he considers frivolous luxuries — the latest smartphones and clothing — which they could better spend on food. For poor Americans who are in debt, however, such a notion seems laughable.
It is also significant that Pollan's celebration of Polyface Farm is entitled "Pastoral." As he waxes poetic about "the meadows dotted with contented animals," Pollan paints Salatin's relationship with the land as ideal — an extension both of Salatin's devout Christian belief in stewardship of the land and his knowledge of traditional agricultural practices (Pollan 2006: 124). But for consumers living in highly urbanized environments, regular access to a farmers' market, much less a farm like Salatin's, is simply not practical for everyday shopping.
The goal of the American food system is to provide access to food for everyone, but small farms like Salatin's may not produce enough food, or be able to distribute it widely enough, to offer a feasible solution to the omnivore's dilemma. The majority of America is no longer pastoral, and only a very small, often privileged segment of the population can afford to drive far and wide to purchase ethically produced meat.
A further problem involves human desire, free will, and the finitude of time. Even with the powerful personal incentive of weight loss, many Americans are unable to make the dietary changes needed to reach that goal. The desire to lose weight for social and health-related reasons is immediate and concrete — far more so than the abstract goal of improving the environment — yet people still fail to act on it. Why does Pollan believe that ethical pressures will succeed in changing consumption habits, such as a retreat from fast food, when doctors and other healthcare professionals have been so ineffective in encouraging people to change?
Eating is a habit, and old habits die hard. This is particularly true for the poor, who lack the food budget to experiment with new ingredients they may not enjoy. For these consumers, Pollan's model is especially unsuitable.
"Habit and limited time hinder dietary change"
"Pollan's rebuttals fail for time-poor consumers"
Worthen, B. (2010). A dozen eggs for $8? Michael Pollan explains the math of buying local. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704271804575405521469248574.html
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