Few Americans think about where their food comes from, beyond the grocery store shelf. One might admire the picturesque farm pictured on a bag of salad, or even prefer Florida oranges, but is probably safe to say that’s about as deep as the average person’s thinking goes on the subject. Yet what we don’t realize is that where are food comes from has a dramatic impact on our lives and on the lives of future generations. Yet this is the main focus of Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, the widely popular look at what is wrong with America’s food system. As you read, you not only trace Mr. Pollan on his personal quest to learn about the food he eats, you also trace the food from the farm or stock yard to your table.
To understand the basics of the American food system, you have to understand the miracle crop that is corn. For well, pretty much everyone in America except the people who grow it, it should seem odd that such an unassuming crop should play such an important role in our everyday lives. The fact is that it is in pretty much everything we consume, from the sugary soda you drink to the ethanol in your gas tank. It is also the topic of the first portion of the book aptly named ‘Industrial Corn’. While there have been undoubtedly been many studies and other works that go into detail about why this reliance on corn should matter to us as the everyday consumer, and it does, few are as well written or as personal as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”.
The fact is, nothing on our table is exactly what it seems. That the organic chicken you ate for dinner? Raised in a massive farm-factory barely different that a ‘normal’ (for little in grocery stores can be called normal) chicken. That shine on your orange? Made from corn and a bit little food magic. And those organics steaks you bought probably spent almost as much time in a stockyard as the much cheaper, normal steaks did. Confused? Angry? You should be, especially since the way we raise food (according to Pollan and proven by an increasing amount of studies) is destroying not only the environment, but hurting our health too. And that is the omnivores dilemma: with some many choices available for us to eat, how do we decide which ones are safe?
This is the basic question Mr. Pollan sets out to answer, and it one that he definitively answers: the modern food system is fundamentally broken and unable to provide us with food that both is nutritional to us and does not leave the earth irrevocably damaged.
