What Are You Really Eating?
A Review of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”
A review of Michael Pollan's latest book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals"
There are good books, great books and life-changing books that make you feel as if you’ve just opened your eyes and seen the world for the first time. That last kind of book is rare but wonderful, even when it reveals truths that are ugly or unpleasant.
“The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is one of those books.
If you haven’t read Michael Pollan’s latest book, subtitled “A Natural History of Four Meals,” order a copy now or reserve one at your local library. Because if you’ve ever had doubts about the benefits of green living and green eating, this book will wash them clean away.
Starting from the fields and farms, Pollan traces the paths that lead to four different meals: fast food, mainstream organic, sustainably farmed and hunted/gathered. He portrays each food chain in illuminating depth and great, and often disturbing, detail.
Most disturbing of all is the food chain we all probably know best: the processed, big-business, convenience and fast-food chain. Anyone who’s concerned about eating well and living green is sure to end this section thinking, “Ugh, THAT’S where our food comes from and how it’s made?”
By contrast, Pollan’s excursion into sustainable – pastoral, as he calls it – farming offers a refreshing breath of air into the food production picture. His account of a week working on Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm is bound to leave many believing that this is the way food should be produced.
The reasons more of it isn’t, Pollan makes clear: sustainable farming doesn’t fit with the modern industrial world’s dependence on economies of scale, and it doesn’t accommodate a marketplace where consumers are used to buying strawberries and asparagus year-round, no matter what the local season is. Finally, sustainable farming is just plain hard work.
So what’s the solution for would-be green eaters? Pollan leaves that mostly unresolved and rightfully so. It’s up to each of us to know where our food comes from and how it’s prepared, he concludes. Only then can we have a meaningful dialogue about how we should eat.
(Learn more about the green living lessons you can take from "The Omnivore's Dilemma" at http://greenliving.suite101.com/article.cfm/lessons_from__omnivore_s_dilemma_?CFID=47206740&CFTOKEN=65388260)
