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A review by alongapath
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
4.0
The Omnivore's Dilemma is a complete education in food. I doubt that someone can read this book in its entirety and not be influenced by it.
Pollan divides his lessons into four types of food production: Industrial, Organic, Sustainable and Foraged. And from each part, he creates a omnivore meal that is a true example of that type of food production, after having researched each menu from seed to plate. Throughout his research, he reveals all matter of political, economical, scientific and philosophical detail impacting the end result. I learned more about the anatomy of a corn plant than I ever imagined possible.
Although parts of the book read like a textbook, each aspect is important in understanding how farming practices, livestock feed, slaughter and food preparations/preservation all play into the health of our bodies and the land. As you can well imagine, the Industrial meal has no redeeming qualities while the Sustainable meal allows the body and the conscience to be well-nourished. It is not difficult to predict that local, sustainable farming practices are held up as the golden goal, with happy chickens and piglets roaming contentedly on the grass farmer's acres.
The Foraged meal chapter surprised me. Pollan threw himself headlong into boar and mushroom hunting and even went so far as to harvest his own salt from ocean water for the resulting meal. But he absolutely went over the top as he described the drug-like trance he experienced while hunting wild pig and the severe reprimand he received for having spent an entire day hunting without loading his rifle, resulting in missing the opportunity to take down a pig. This chapter struck me a silly since his emotions were far more apparent here than when he visited a KAFO slaughter house in the Industrial chapter or the open-air chicken processing event in the Sustainable chapter. The resulting foraged meal took him many weeks to acquire and prepare and resulted in a meal that even he seemed embarrassed to serve his guests. Since this was the final chapter, I worry that he may have left readers with the notion that foraging was a waste of time and that we would be better off with the convenience food offered at a drive-thru. I hope that readers can see past the fantasy-enhanced writing of this chapter and still realise that hunting and foraging are reasonable, sustainable ways to acquire delicious food.
Pollan predictably preaches to the converted but, as a person who tries my best to eat only locally farmed food, I learned an amazing amount and I know that I will revisit this book in the future to remind myself why I do so.
Pollan divides his lessons into four types of food production: Industrial, Organic, Sustainable and Foraged. And from each part, he creates a omnivore meal that is a true example of that type of food production, after having researched each menu from seed to plate. Throughout his research, he reveals all matter of political, economical, scientific and philosophical detail impacting the end result. I learned more about the anatomy of a corn plant than I ever imagined possible.
Although parts of the book read like a textbook, each aspect is important in understanding how farming practices, livestock feed, slaughter and food preparations/preservation all play into the health of our bodies and the land. As you can well imagine, the Industrial meal has no redeeming qualities while the Sustainable meal allows the body and the conscience to be well-nourished. It is not difficult to predict that local, sustainable farming practices are held up as the golden goal, with happy chickens and piglets roaming contentedly on the grass farmer's acres.
The Foraged meal chapter surprised me. Pollan threw himself headlong into boar and mushroom hunting and even went so far as to harvest his own salt from ocean water for the resulting meal. But he absolutely went over the top as he described the drug-like trance he experienced while hunting wild pig and the severe reprimand he received for having spent an entire day hunting without loading his rifle, resulting in missing the opportunity to take down a pig. This chapter struck me a silly since his emotions were far more apparent here than when he visited a KAFO slaughter house in the Industrial chapter or the open-air chicken processing event in the Sustainable chapter. The resulting foraged meal took him many weeks to acquire and prepare and resulted in a meal that even he seemed embarrassed to serve his guests. Since this was the final chapter, I worry that he may have left readers with the notion that foraging was a waste of time and that we would be better off with the convenience food offered at a drive-thru. I hope that readers can see past the fantasy-enhanced writing of this chapter and still realise that hunting and foraging are reasonable, sustainable ways to acquire delicious food.
Pollan predictably preaches to the converted but, as a person who tries my best to eat only locally farmed food, I learned an amazing amount and I know that I will revisit this book in the future to remind myself why I do so.