The Omnivore's Dilemma
Encyclopedia
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a nonfiction book by Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...

 published in 2006. In the book, Pollan asks the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. As omnivore
Omnivore
Omnivores are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source...

s – the most unselective eaters – we humans are faced with a wide variety of food choices, resulting in a dilemma
Dilemma
A dilemma |proposition]]") is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable. One in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable...

. To learn more out about those choices, Pollan follows each of the food chain
Food chain
A food web depicts feeding connections in an ecological community. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs...

s that sustain us – industrial food, organic food
Organic food
Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...

, and food we forage ourselves – from the source to a final meal, and in the process writes an account of the American way of eating
Cuisine of the United States
American cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from the United States of America. European colonization of the Americas yielded the introduction of a number of ingredients and cooking styles to the latter...

.

Industrial

Pollan begins with an exploration of the food-production system from which the vast majority of American meals are derived. This industrial food chain is largely based on corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

, whether it is eaten directly, fed to livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...

, or processed into chemicals such as glucose
Glucose
Glucose is a simple sugar and an important carbohydrate in biology. Cells use it as the primary source of energy and a metabolic intermediate...

, often in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, and ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...

. Pollan discusses how the corn plant came to dominate the American diet through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors. He visits George Naylor's corn farm in Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

 to learn more about those factors. The role of petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...

 in the cultivation and transport
Transport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...

ation of the American food supply is also discussed.

A fast food
Fast food
Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a...

 meal is used to illustrate the end result of the industrial food chain.
He discusses that corn is dependent on humans.

Pastoral

The following section delves into the principles of organic farming
Organic farming
Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...

 and their various implementations in modern America. Pollan shows that, while organic food
Organic food
Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...

 has grown in popularity, its producers have adopted many of the methods of industrial agriculture
Industrial agriculture
Industrial farming is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of livestock, poultry, fish, and crops. The methods of industrial agriculture are technoscientific, economic, and political...

, losing sight of the organic movement
Organic movement
The organic movement broadly refers to the organizations and individuals involved worldwide in the promotion of organic farming, which is a more sustainable mode of agriculture...

's anti-industrial
Deindustrialization
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially heavy industry or manufacturing industry. It is an opposite of industrialization.- Multiple interpretations :There are multiple...

 roots. A meal prepared from ingredients purchased at Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods Market is a foods supermarket chain based in Austin, Texas which emphasizes "natural and organic products." The company has been ranked among the most socially responsible businesses and placed third on the U.S...

 represents this food chain at the table.

As a study in contrast, Pollan visits Joel Salatin
Joel Salatin
Joel F. Salatin is an American farmer, lecturer, and author whose books include You Can Farm and Salad Bar Beef.Salatin raises livestock using holistic methods of animal husbandry, free of potentially harmful chemicals, on his Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley...

's minor ecological rotation farm, where natural conditions are adhered to as closely as possible, very few chemicals used, and waste products are recycled
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

 back into the system. He then prepares a meal using only local produce
Local food
Local food or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular...

 from nearby small-scale farmers.

Personal

The final section finds Pollan attempting to prepare a meal using only ingredients he has hunted
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...

, gathered, or grown himself. He recruits assistance from local foodie
Foodie
Foodie is an informal term for a particular class of aficionado of food and drink. The word was coined in 1981 by Paul Levy and Ann Barr, who used it in the title of their 1984 book The Official Foodie Handbook.- Distinguished from gourmet :...

s, who teach him to hunt feral pigs, gather wild mushrooms
Mushroom hunting
Mushroom hunting, mushrooming, mushroom picking, and similar terms describe the activity of gathering mushrooms in the wild, typically for eating...

, and search for abalone
Abalone
Abalone , from aulón, are small to very large-sized edible sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Haliotidae and the genus Haliotis...

. He also makes a salad
Salad
Salad is any of a wide variety of dishes, including vegetable salads; salads of pasta, legumes, eggs, or grains; mixed salads incorporating meat, poultry, or seafood; and fruit salads. They may include a mixture of cold and hot, often including raw vegetables or fruits.Green salads include leaf...

 of greens
Leaf vegetable
Leaf vegetables, also called potherbs, green vegetables, greens, leafy greens or salad greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by tender petioles and shoots...

 from his own garden, bakes sourdough
Sourdough
Sourdough is a dough containing a Lactobacillus culture, usually in symbiotic combination with yeasts. It is one of two principal means of biological leavening in bread baking, along with the use of cultivated forms of yeast . It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast...

 bread using wild yeast, and prepares a dessert from cherries
Cherry
The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy stone fruit. The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species, including especially cultivars of the wild cherry, Prunus avium....

 picked in his neighborhood.

Pollan concludes that the fast food meal and the hunter-gather meal are "equally unreal and equally unsustainable." He believes that if we were once again aware of the source of our food – what it was, where it came from, how it traveled to reach us, and its true cost – we would see that we "eat by the grace of nature, not industry."

Controversy

Economist Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen is an American economist, academic, and writer. He occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution...

 argued, "The problems with Pollan's 'self-financed' meal reflect the major shortcoming of the book: He focuses on what is before his eyes but neglects the macro perspective of the economist. He wants to make the costs of various foods transparent, but this is an unattainable ideal, given the interconnectedness of markets."

Washington State University
Washington State University
Washington State University is a public research university based in Pullman, Washington, in the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 1890, WSU is the state's original and largest land-grant university...

, situated in an agricultural area of Washington state
Washington State
Washington State may refer to:* Washington , often referred to as "Washington state" to differentiate it from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States* Washington State University, a land-grant college in that state- See also :...

, chose this book to be part of its freshman reading program in 2009, but soon canceled the program. Many in the university's community, including those who run the kinds of industrial farms that The Omnivore's Dilemma discusses, were unhappy with the selection, and speculation was that the cancellation was a result of political pressure. Elson Floyd
Elson Floyd
Elson S. Floyd is an American educator who took office as the 10th president of the four-campus Washington State University on May 21, 2007. He succeeded V. Lane Rawlins as the leader of Washington State’s land-grant research university...

, president of WSU, claimed instead that it was a budgetary issue, and when food safety expert Bill Marler
William Marler
William "Bill" Marler, a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer and food safety advocate, is Managing Partner of Marler Clark, a Seattle, Washington based law firm that specializes in foodborne illness cases.-Background:...

 stepped up to cover the claimed shortfall, the program was reinstated, and Pollan was invited to speak on campus.

The September 2007 issue of The Atlantic included a review of The Omnivore's Dilemma by B.R. Myers. Myers was severely critical of Pollan's attitudes toward vegetarians and the animal rights movement, describing the work as "a record of the gourmet’s ongoing failure to think in moral terms."

In the July 2009 edition of The American, the journal of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...

, the article The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals by Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 farmer Blake Hurst critiqued Pollan's book on many points, contrasting his farming experience with Pollan's conclusions. Hurst argues that "some of the largest farms in the country are organic – and are giant organizations dependent upon lots of hired stoop labor." Hurst also points out the benefits of no-till agriculture and of industrially-produced food, including food from confined animal operations.

Reviews

  • Flannery, Tim
    Tim Flannery
    Timothy Fridtjof Flannery is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist and global warming activist....

     (2007, June 28). "We're Living on Corn". The New York Review of Books
    The New York Review of Books
    The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

    . 54/11: 26–28.

Honors

The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 named The Omnivore’s Dilemma one of the ten best books of 2006. and Pollan was also the recipient of a James Beard Award for the work.

See also

  • Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
  • Deconstructing Dinner
    Deconstructing Dinner
    Deconstructing Dinner is a syndicated public affairs show which discusses food and sustainable food systems. The show is produced and recorded in the studios of CJLY-FM Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson, British Columbia. As of Oct. 2009 the program is aired on 37 campus radio stations and community...

  • Environmental effects of meat production
    Environmental effects of meat production
    The environmental impact of meat production includes pollution and the use of resources such as fossil fuels, water, and land. According to a 2006 report by the Livestock, Environment And Development Initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation...

  • Food, Inc., a documentary film based partially on the book
  • Land Institute
    Land Institute
    The Land Institute is a non-profit research, education, and policy organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture based in Salina, Kansas, United States....


External links

Official
Essays
  • "Unhappy Meals", by Michael Pollan, The New York Times
    The New York Times
    The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

    , January 28, 2007
  • "An Animal's Place", essay by Michael Pollan, re-printed from The New York Times, January 2003. This essay was the spark of the idea for the book.

Interviews
  • "How Food Finds its Way to Your Plate", interview by Talk of the Nation
    Talk of the Nation
    Talk of the Nation is a talk radio program based in the United States, produced by National Public Radio, and is broadcast nationally from 2 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time. Its focus is current events and controversial issues....

    , NPR, November 24, 2006.
  • "Dinner: An Author Considers the Source", interview by "Fresh Air
    Fresh Air
    Fresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States. The show is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its longtime host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 450 stations and claimed 4.5 million listeners. The show...

    ", NPR, April 11, 2006.
  • "Michael Pollan: The Truthdig Interview", interview by Blair Golson of Truthdig
    Truthdig
    Truthdig is a Web magazine that provides a mix of long-form articles, interviews, and blog-like commentary on current events, delivered from a progressive point of view. The site is built around major "digs" led by authorities in their fields who write multifaceted pieces about contemporary, often...

    , April 11, 2006.
  • "No Bar Code", excerpt from The Omnivore's Dilemma from Mother Jones
    Mother Jones (magazine)
    Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...

    , May 2005.
  • "Modern Meat", interview by Frontline, PBS, 2005.

Reviews
  • The Monthly 'Eco-Worriers: Michael Pollan’s ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ & Bill McKibben’s ‘Deep Economy’, Robyn Davidson
    Robyn Davidson
    Robyn Davidson is an Australian writer best known for her book Tracks, about a 1,700-mile trek across the deserts of west Australia using camels. Her career of travelling and writing about her travels has spanned over 30 years....

     , The Monthly
    The Monthly
    The Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...

  • Salon.com - 'We are what we eat: The Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan on how Wall Street has driven America's obesity epidemic, the misleading labels in Whole Foods, and why we should spend more money on food' (book review), Ira Boudway, Salon.com
    Salon.com
    Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

  • WashingtonPost.com - 'You Are What You Eat: A journalist traces the meal on his plate back through the food chain' (The Omnivore’s Dilemma book review), Bunny Crumpacker, Washington Post (April 9, 2006)
  • San Francisco Chronicle - 'Anatomy of a Meal: UC Berkeley's Michael Pollan Examines What We Eat, and How to Decide What We Should Eat', Troy Jollimore, San Francisco Chronicle
    San Francisco Chronicle
    thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

     (April 9, 2006)
  • Grist.org - 'Let's Make a Meal: Michael Pollan digs into the mysteries of the U.S. diet in The Omnivore's Dilemma, Tom Philpott, Grist Magazine
    Grist Magazine
    Grist is a free American liberal non-profit online magazine that has been publishing environmental news and commentary with a wry twist since 1999. Grists taglines are "Gloom and doom with a sense of humor" and "A beacon in the smog"...

    (April 13, 2006)
  • Boldtype.com - review of The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
  • New York Times Review
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