The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan

—A Book Review by Katie Dahl, HPC Member

Are you more likely to choose a vegetable labeled “certified organic” or “locally grown"? Would you pay a little extra for grass-fed beef? Would you risk eating a mushroom from the wild or play it safe in favor of a mushroom from the produce aisle? If you expect Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, to tell you how you should answer these questions, you’ll surely be disappointed. But if you’re looking for an author who addresses the omnivore’s dilemma with a critical yet honest eye, the book is well worth the read.

Pollan’s approach is relatively simple—he traces various aspects of the human’s role in the food chain. He looks at the corn industry, revealing the enormous amounts of corn fed to livestock and processed into high fructose corn syrup. Pollan compares the life and slaughterhouse death of a steer on a factory farm to that of a steer on a family-owned, sustainable farm. And he evaluates the cost (environmental, social, and financial) of feeding his family ultra-processed, cheap, fast food versus big business, grocery-store-labeled organic. I felt as if Michael Pollan was inside my brain as he weighed the pros and cons of each situation.

Pollan’s book also elaborates on his 2004 article in the New York Times Magazine entitled “Our National Eating Disorder.” If you’ve ever watched daytime television or sat in a food court for an hour, you’ve likely seen this disorder in action. It’s ironic, in fact. On the one hand, our nation is obsessed with fad diets and celebrity workout plans. On the other hand, we’re in too much of a hurry to prepare healthful meals at home, so we succumb to the ease of calorie-packed burgers and fries. Pollan notes that unlike most other countries around the world, the United States lacks a staple diet or cultural food tradition. “Instead of relying on the accumulated wisdom of a cuisine…we rely on expert opinion, advertising, government food pyramids, and diet books, and we place our faith in science to sort out for us what culture once did…” (p. 303).

The final section of Pollan’s book describes his own journey of growing, hunting, foraging, and preparing a meal. He surrounds himself with experts— those who have hunted wild boars and gathered chanterelles for years—and he realizes how much knowledge and time are needed to be not only successful but also safe in providing food for his family. Pollan’s writing is witty and creative at times and disturbing and blunt at others, but it gets at the heart of the dilemmas omnivores face.

[The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Penguin Press: 2006) is currently available in hardcover in local bookstores. A co-op book discussion is planned for late summer or early autumn, after the book is available in paperback.]