The Omnivore's Dilemma

I realize that it’s rather audacious of me to recommend Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma to anyone (even though Rebecca recommended it to me). Given how extreme my views on diet have become, I might easily be suspected of trying to ram tofu and wheatgrass down your collective throats. Save your gag reflexes, as this is nothing of the kind. Omnivore’s Dilemma is neither an indictment of carnivores nor an endorsement of the organic movement. Rather, it is a fairly comprehensive and well-balanced look at what we eat and why we eat it.

The book opens with a treatise on corn. Americans eat a lot of corn. (More than Mexicans, the author notes.) Our meat is a product of corn, as is most of our sugar and at least some of almost every processed food. Pollan traces this extraordinary dependence to back to political decisions made during the Nixon administration that opened the floodgates for corn subsidies, which have lingered the past 40 years. As a result, we have quite frighteningly become the people of the corn. (For a related exploration of this topic, see the strange but entertaining 2007 documentary King Corn.)

In the balance of the book, Pollan provides a detailed, vivid and intimate contrast between factory farming and localized, traditional farming practices. As everyone knows, we get nearly all of our food from the former while the latter have become virtually extinct. The book explains why this has happened, the result of government policy, special-interest legislation, a growing population and free market dynamics. And so we are left with a food supply that has been processed for efficiency and profitability with little regard for anything else.

On close examination, the modern agricultural system seems almost surreal, a vicious circle that has left us with a dependence on chemical fertilizers and dangerous pesticides, which have led to depleted soil, watershed pollution, high petroleum requirements and tasteless produce, all propped up by government subsidies that mostly enrich large and profitable corporate enterprises. And we haven’t even started on meat processing, which is not only mildly repulsive, but environmentally devastating and terribly unhealthy by comparison. (For an interesting documentary film on factory agriculture--produce, fish, meat and dairy--see We Feed the World.)

What to do? Not to oversimplify, but perhaps the slow foods movement provides the most organized efforts in the right direction. But read the book. Even if it doesn’t change your life, it’s a fun read. After all, eating is our most primitive urge and at the core of our culture and society. It’s not a bad idea to consider the source.