This is a non-fiction account of the history behind the food we eat. This book describes the great industrial food complex and advocates local, organic foods. Extremely well-researched and well-presented. This was a compelling book and will likely convince you to change your eating habits.

Pollan presents this discussion in an easy-to-read format and gives the reader a well-rounded story. I highly recommend this book and hope that more agriculture schools and nutrition classes use it in the classroom.

This book contains a clear accounting of the farming of corn and the use
of corn to make corn syrup and other corn products used in human foods,
and the problem with the destruction of farming soil and pollution of
the environment with fertilizers used to increase the yield per acre of
corn. The Author does not address the problem with adding corn by-products to our dog and cat foods, among which are the basic indigestibility of corn in these animals, and the problem of pet illness that results from the feeding of pet foods with corn products in them.
This is a great book. To learn more about pet nutrition please
go to www.amiespetcuisine.com, and see HOW TO COOK FOR YOUR PET.

I read this book a little while ago and didn't have time to review it, but the essential messages keep popping into my consciousness as I go about my day-to-day life. Before reading this book, for example, I had never realized that Corn has cunningly taken over the world and turned us all into "Corn People." Pollan's simple plan - to make three meals - turns into an exploration of all things wrong with the modern industrial food production and delivery system. Pollan's prose is wonderful and his thinking nothing short of brilliant. Even if some of his ideas are not completely original, as some critical reviews argue, this is still a remarkable book that will enrich your life - and the world, if enough people read it.

A very interesting book which fairly considers, defends and challenges all eating habits from vegans to junk-food junkies. Micheal Pollan does an excellent job of tracking down the history of food laws & policies in the U.S. and revealing how that history impacts our national eating habits today. Most of all I liked the ending, which wasn't doom and gloom but rather a positive recounting of the author's own completley home-made meal. He seemed to really challenge himself, and ultimately enjoy himself, while writing this book.

Omnivore's Dilemma traces our food back to its sources - and in many cases finds corn of all things! The author discusses industrial food production and the primary food chains from their sources to our kitchens. He covers processed foods, mainstream industrial farming, and organic foods. He also addresses how animals are treated, which most people try not to think about. The information in the book is important and eye opening. The take home message for me is that what we eat is so fundamental to life yet we leave it in the hands of others to grow, produce, and deliver to us. This book encourages a consciousness of where food comes from and persuades the reader to look for local organically grown foods or grow some themselves. I recommend this book along with THE 3:00 PM SECRET: Live Slim and Strong, Live Your Dreamsand The 2007 Second Expert Report, Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective.

Spoon River College in Illinois is using this book as one of 3 texts used in its Intro. to Philosophy class. This book opens so many excellent questions about philosophy and ethics that it makes excellent intellectual fodder.

a thoroughly enjoyable read that spans the history of our eating behavior, to the prevalence of corn in our current diet, and one man's journey to reconnect with nature. his personal dilemna with eating meat after learning about the industrial process of meat production and his thought process in rationalizing his decision was the most interesting part. i highly recommend it

Mr. Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" is easily one of the best books I've read this year. He approaches the subject of the food we eat, where it comes from and who grows it in a thoughtful and thought provoking manner. He follows the food chain backwards from the fast food joint, the grocery store and restaurant to our food sources. This a cautionary tale about what the American consumer eats and the industrialization of the US food industry. The book is full of interesting characters that inhabit different elements of the food chain. Mr. Pollan's writing is excellent. He has a point of view but rather than beating you over the head with it, he invites you on a journey to discovery. Be prepared to change the way you look at food. AN OUTSTANDING BOOK!! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

The author has four hypotheses about how we Americans may have become such dysfunctional eaters, and about how our food supplies and our diets came to be the way they are.

Although interesting, this book was not exactly what I was expecting. I was hoping Pollan would get deeper into how the collusion between the US Food and Drug Administration and Agribusiness have conspired to product the "sugar and fat laden" diets that have become the staple of our nation for ordinary Americans and how we cannot easily get around Coke Cola, McDonald's Hamburgers and French fries etc. to a more healthy diet - at least without being better educated and without it being very inconvenient and expensive to these life-shortening and health-killing alternatives. As an almost 70-year old Southerner who grew up on red meats, fried foods, coke, cigarettes and hard liquor, and now have the ABCs and D's of American health (Asthma, Arthritis, hardening arteries, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart problems and diabetes, I can attest to the fact that there is little time to wax eloquent and romantic about the niceties of the American diet.

Although the history of the life cycle of corn, and how it effects our lives is interesting, and goes part of the way down the path to better understanding, it does not go nearly far enough. Given that it is no accident that 65% of us are overweight, and experience serious health problems similar to my own, and at an increasingly earlier age, and that we have no secure health system, American health is indeed no casual or laughing matter.

In light of all of this, this piece seems a bit gratuitous - just short of being flippant and in a larger sense a bit negligent. I believe a much needed golden opportunity to educate the American public about the forces that conspire to shape and "lock us into" our poor diets and health, was lost.

At another time and another place (perhaps in Europe, where the older people are healthier than the young in the U.S.), this would have been a book to celebrate. But today, with our health as well as our healthcare crisis, this book is a luxury that the ordinary American public can ill-afford. For a missed opportunity, and for making only a timid and glancing blow at the nation's number one health problem, three stars. Otherwise, it would have easily been a five star effort.

This book was very well written. Before starting, I was worried that it would be a rather dry read (after all, how much can you say about food?). Well, apparently there is an awful lot to say about food, and Pollan does a great job at making it interesting. He brings to light some of the problems with industrial agriculture that I just never knew existed. He doesn't just present problems is this book however. He also talks about some ways to help make things better. The one thing I did not like was when he had wine while hunting. However, this has nothing to do with the book's readability.

I reccomend this book because I'm not a food fanatic and I found this book interesting.

This book was very well written. Before starting, I was worried that it would be a rather dry read (after all, how much can you say about food?). Well, apparently there is an awful lot to say about food, and Pollan does a great job at making it interesting. He brings to light some of the problems with industrial agriculture that I just never knew existed. He doesn't just present problems is this book however. He also talks about some ways to help make things better.

I reccomend this book because I'm not a food fanatic and I found this book interesting.

The well written, most interesting read on the state of agriculture in the United States is definately "food for thought." The book's author, Michael Pollan visited three different kinds of farms: first a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO); second, three big business organic farms: Cal Organic, Earthbound Farms and Cascadian Farms; third, a farm committed to locally grown, free range food called Polyface. The last part of Pollan's journey involved foraging for own food. Pollan even killed a wild pig to serve at the meal he cooked his friends. Each phase of his jouney concluded with a meal derived from the type of farming operations Michael had just visited. For example, Pollan and his family ate at McDonalds for the CAFO meal.

It took them a full ten minutes speeding down the highway to finish their McDonald's meal. I liked his comment about fast food eating. He says, "Perhaps the reason you eat this food quickly is because it doesn't bear savoring." He goes on to say about fast food, "The more you concentrate on how it tastes, the less like anything it tastes. I've said before that McDonalds serves as kind of comfort food, but they are selling something more schematic than that-something more like a signifier of comfort food. So you eat more and eat more quickly, hoping somehow to catch up to the original idea of a cheeseburger or French fry as it it retreats over the horizon. And so it goes, bite after biite, until you feel not satisfied exactly, but simply, regretably, full."

For all of their good qualities, the big business organic farms have driven many smaller organic famers out of business. Places like Walmart and Target do not want to buy organic food from various small suppliers, but from one large organic supplier that can supply them with all the vegetables, etc. they need. Big organic farms do much harm to soil by continually running the weeding machines over it. Since they don't use herbicides, they have to have a way to control the weeds.

Polyface Farm raises a variety of animals (chickens, pigs and cows) that are pastured and eat the food they were created to eat. Polyface farm doesn't raise more animals than it can care for in a humane manner and refuses to ship it's prcuduct out, but only sells it locally.

I personally buy organic or free range meat. After looking at how our farm facory animals are raised on unnatural feed, in overcrowded conditions, dosed with antibiotics and growth hormones, I will pay the extra money for healthy meat. How far you can go in eating local depends on what part of country you live in (I live in Wisconsin, with its short growing season). It also depends on whether you live close to a source of local food or can grow your own, and also your budget restrainsts.

Now on to the reasons I could not give the book a five star review. Contrary to what Pollan says at the beginning of the book, bread and pasta are not two of the most wholesome foods known to man. Try telling that to a carbohyddrate addict or someone with celiac disease and see what they say. Also, saturated isn't bad for you. It's a traditional fat that's been used by healthy cutures for thousands of years. The trans fats, as well as, fats from CAFO animals are the real killer fats. When you feed animals unnatural diets, their ratios of saturated to unsaturated fat changes in a very unhealthy manner. Free range meat has a healthy balnce of various kinds of fats. Also, how could a person who has seen how a CAFO is run say he would ever again eat at a McDonalds. If I were starving and had no other food choices, then and only then would I eat there.

The well written, most interesting read on the state of agriculture in the United States is definately "food for thought." The book's author, Michael Pollan visited three different kinds of farms: first a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO); second, three big business organic farms: Cal Organic, Earthbound Farms and Cascadian Farms; third, a farm committed to locally grown, free range food called Polyface. The last part of Pollan's journey involved foraging for own food. Pollan even killed a wild pig to serve at the meal he cooked his friends. Each phase of his jouney concluded with a meal derived from the type of farming operations Michael had just visited. For example, Pollan and his family ate at McDonalds for the CAFO meal.

It took them a full ten minutes speeding down the highway to finish their McDonald's meal. I liked his comment about fast food eating. He says, "Perhaps the reason you eat this food quickly is because it doesn't bear savoring." He goes on to say about fast food, "The more you concentrate on how it tastes, the less like anything it tastes. I've said before that McDonalds serves as kind of comfort food, but they are selling something more schematic than that-something more like a signifier of comfort food. So you eat more and eat more quickly, hoping somehow to catch up to the original idea of a cheeseburger or French fry as it it retreats over the horizon. And so it goes, bite after biite, until you feel not satisfied exactly, but simply, regretably, full."

For all of their good qualities, the big business organic farms have driven many smaller organic famers out of business. Places like Walmart and Target do not want to buy organic food from various small suppliers, but from one large organic supplier that can supply them with all the vegetables, etc. they need. Big organic farms do much harm to soil by continually running the weeding machines over it. Since they don't use herbicides, they have to have a way to control the weeds.

Polyface Farm raises a variety of animals (chickens, pigs and cows) that are pastured and eat the food they were created to eat. Polyface farm doesn't raise more animals than it can care for in a humane manner and refuses to ship it's prcuduct out, but only sells it locally.

I personally buy organic or free range meat. After looking at how our farm facory animals are raised on unnatural feed, in overcrowded conditions, dosed with antibiotics and growth hormones, I will pay the extra money for healthy meat. How far you can go in eating local depends on what part of country you live in (I live in Wisconsin, with its short growing season). It also depends on whether you live close to a source of local food or can grow your own, and also your budget restrainsts.

An amazing tour de force of food in the US! Pollan writes with wonderful wisdom and honesty. The book has a wonderful bibliography.

Industrial food is at the heart of all the major health problems in this country. Pollan will open your eyes to the fact and make you wnat to learn about the alternatives.

Highly recommended!

This book was extremely informative and very interesting. Some parts are a little slow but if you're driving down the road its easy to get lost in the discussion of various foods and how they succeed or fail based on their ingredients, big corporations, and government intervention.

Corn is a substance nearly incapable of growing without human intervention and is being used, regardless of health issues, in just about anything.

Simply put, if I could force one book upon every living soul, this would be the one. I don't see how anyone couldn't learn something at the very least, and more than likely it will change your way of thinking to some degree. It would bring the industrialized food market to its knees if even a percentage of people took this book to heart as much as I have.

I could barely put this book down! The writing style is casual and gets a bit wordy and technical sometimes, but it's so worth it! All the information is really necessary to open our eyes about factory farms, our food supply and who's in charge of it!(I'm still shocked about all the conflicts of interest! YIKES!) I've seriously changed my eating habits! Read this book, I highly recommend it!

I have to admit that I did not finish this book. I got to the part where the author talks about really feeling his he-man roots and enjoys killing an animal. From a person who grew up inside a hunting culture, I can only say that from my perspective, he gets it all wrong. His conclusions are based upon an educated adult outside the hunting community and he assumes that hunting is "naturally" enjoyable. I can only say that my upbringing shows me that it is a terrible and terrifying experience to boys and that it is only peer pressure that causes them to start to like it in order to be part of the "adult" group. And then, they perpetrate this horror on their own children, and the whole sadistic cycle begins again. Please don't bother with his over educated conclusions, I think he just wants people to think he is "manly".

When I opened this book, I expected something along the lines of the social history of food...but what I got was something much better!

Pollan's writing, always self-effacing, humorous and insightful, became the perfect and certainly never preachy vehicle for a painless exploration of exactly what's on my plate and how it got there. Politics, animal rights, organic foods, economics and even mushroom-hunting all make an appearance amid farm machinery and well-cooked, tasty meals. Marvelous!

His always-witty first-hand observations of the increasingly tragic state of affairs in American (and perhaps World) farming were not only informative but thought provoking. Visits to the grocery story will never be the same.

I strongly recommend this book to anybody who has never set foot on a farm, to those who (like me) grew up surrounded by cows and corn, and to those who simply like to cook and eat...and would like to keep eating.

We owe it to ourselves and our world to understand that our foodchains do not begin with the supermarket.

Omnivore's Dilemma traces our food back to its sources - and in many cases finds corn of all things! The author discusses industrial food production and the primary food chains from their sources to our kitchens. He covers processed foods, mainstream industrial farming, and organic foods. He also addresses how animals are treated - pretty scary. The information in the book is important and eye opening. The poignant take home message for me is that what we eat is so fundamental to life yet we leave it in the hands of others to grow, produce, and deliver to us. This book encourages a consciousness of where food comes from and persuades the reader to look for local organically grown foods or grow some themselves. I recommend this book along with another life-changing book, THE 3:00 PM SECRET: Live Slim and Strong, Live Your Dreams

I read this along side his new book and parts of it reminded me of a really dry Super Size Me or The Evolution Diet, but there's a good moral here: Don't let some stupid government program based on the war machine dictate what you should eat. Instead, eat natural foods if you can afford and/or procure them. I was a big fan of the Saltins when reading the book- funny characters!

Pollan creates a very informative and interesting book that us simple folk can enjoy and learn from.

For years I've have medical problems that could only be atributable to some rather bizarre genetic predalictions or to something in my diet as yet undefinable. After years of searching, and diligently keeping my food diary with the help of elimination diets, I've finally figured out what was making me ill --- industrialized food!! At that point, I started absorbing everything on the topic that I could get my hands on... including "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan.

Pollan takes us through a journey of discovery with one of the most critical necessities of life... food. While, at times, he waxes a little poetic and throws in an unnecessary $25 word or two, he does an admirable job illustrating and contrasting the social, political, environmental and nutritional aspects of industrial agriculture, large-scale and local-scale organic agriculture, and hunting-gathering.

I'm glad to have read this book, even if parts of it are eerily remniscent of other such books and articles on the topics. It shows me that I am not the only person concerned with the quality of our food system and the inherent drawbacks of industrialization in an otherwise natural process. After reading this book, one will never again be able to just "pick something up" at a fast food restaurant or supermarket and not realize the impacts those choices have on themselves and the world around them. Ignorance is only bliss in that it reduces such moral dilemma's - in the end, it really could kill you (or at least, make you very ill). This book doesn't allow you the self-destructive freedom of such ignorance when it comes to the food you eat or where/who you buy it from.

This book is great and should be read by everyone. I think we the "eating public" need this education.

When I discovered that a disk was bad, I contacted Amazon and they quickly sent a replacement package. Some of /those/ disks were bad, too, but between the two sets I had enough good disks to have one good set. Seems like the manufacturer went too far trying to have these CDs made at the cheapest price.
Book is good, but I wouldn't want to repeat the experience.

This is a wonderful book! The science and philosophy and personal narrative blend together to make an extremely satisfying read. I found The Omnivore's Dilemma to be one of those works which contemplate the question of what it means to be human, with a thought-provoking answer which touches many facets of our humanity. The writing is conversational and easy to understand. Five stars!

Not what I was expecting. It was recommended by a friend, but it was more like a textbook than an informational read.

Two Thins changed my life. The first was the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" and the second was this book " "The Omnivore's Dilemma". I spent 2008 converting my 1999 Ford Ranger Pickup Truck to a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) as aresult of these two media. The first is obvious the second deserves an explanation. This book made me realize for the first time that there is a connection between the food supply and petroleum.

I thought ok we run out of oil, so we walk or ride a bike or drive electric cars. It turns out, we also starve to death. We all need to connect the dots. Our oil economy is killing us. We need oil to drive the food supply.

I enjoyed this book, but there were also many parts of it that were dissapointing. Pollan writes best when he writes as a journalist, telling us about his investigation of the role of corn in the American food supply, or about the varieties of organic farming. But when he turns his attention to philosophizing about vegetarianism, the product is less than stellar. And when he goes hunting with a mentor, his romanticization of it gets positively ridiculous. This book is probably best as an introduction for someone who is just beginning to become interested in issues about food and the food supply. Someone who has already given much thought to the subject may not get much out of it.

The author has done an excellent job educating his readers about food, all the way from the shelf back to its roots. I never knew corn was such a driving force in the market. I liked his casual style of writing, and even though it's non-fic, he did a great job bringing the reader into the scene. It was easy to imagine some of the places he went to see for himself the processing of many foods. Excellent read, and well-worth the money.

Do you know where the food you eat comes from? Do you know what chemicals are sprayed on to them? What genes within them have been modified? What inhumane treatment has gotten the food to your plate?

If you don't, it may be time to read the Omnivore's Dilemma and reassess your eating habits. This book isn't the most entertaining, but boy does it open your eyes! From the genetically-modified asexual corn-fed, confined cows that end up in a McDonald's Happy Meal to the mushroom hotspots in the wilds of Northern California, Pollan takes us on a journey of food.

A lot of this book reinforces what my favorite diet book (The Evolution Diet) says- you're much better off eating from nature than digging into a Whopper with fries. But that's obvious- this book takes you on the lengthy trail of our modern foods from field to plate.

**Note- Not a diet book!

This is one of the best investigations into the modern food system that I have seen.

I stumbled upon this book on accident and am glad to have found it.
Pollan is an amazing writer. This book was very easy to read and provided much needed information about the treatment of animals and how other food is processed, without being preachy. This book has made me think twice before putting food into my shopping cart. Insightful, informative,and his tidbits of humor keep the pages light when need be. Will definitely buy other books of his!

This is such an incredible book. The information in this book is important and informative. Everyone should read it to gain some understanding of where our food come from. I think our condition, how our food is produced, needs a revolution.

This easy to read book says it all. Having worked in agriculture for over 30 years I thought that I knew a great deal about the subject matter. But this exceptionally well written treat opened up new areas for me. I loved taking a rest and reading it.

This is one of the best books I have read lately. Somewhere between an expose, history lesson, and memoir, the book provokes many thoughts as to where his past and future meals come from and their effects on the world. Reading it made me contemplate buying a place in the country and raising my own food. Particularly pertinent at this time of increased ethanol production and consumption, that section is equally informative in explaining how we are awash in a big government subsidized tidal wave of corn.

Well...I found this book by Michael Pollan to be quite a thought provoker. While it won't necesaarily change your life, it well might - and how many books can you really say that about? I will say this is a book you all should read. If you have the interest, enthusiam and curiosity about food to come to this forum you have the perfect raw material to consume this very well written book.

I don't want to spoil the book by providing too much rehashing of the narrative. But the big theme is that food has become a very "industrialized" industry and does not much resemble nature in it's original state. This has multiple implications including nutrition, pollution, ethics and TASTE.

Pollan explores some alternatives to the "industrial" approach including an extended look at the "organic" food business and an interesting, albeit impractical, look at being a "hunter/gatherer".

Overall this book demands you give a higher level of THOUGHT into what you are eating and raises your awareness. It is not a preachy book filled with PETA ranting or other condemnations typical of the genre. He is pretty balanced in his views.

This may have hit me more in a personal "perfect storm" kind of way. I live and travel massively through Asia and the Middle East and I've been reading lots of books lately about America having lost its way somewhere - still driving 4 ton SUVs with $135 oil and whistling past the global warming graveyard. With this election coming up it's hard not to look at our position and feel a touch of despair - reviled around the world, in debt beyond belief (as individuals and as a country) and largely unaware (or suspicious) of the progress other countries are making at warp speed. I combine that with the personal introspection of making more money in a week than my father ever made in a year and feeling somehow unsatisifed still and I start to wonder - where is this all going? And then I read this book and had to factor my food into the equation! It all seems like going back to simpler values and lifestyle might not be a bad direction. Maybe it's typical "mid life" stuff for this 46 year old. I still love the US and have an unshakable confidence in it - but we are capable of much better than we have been achieving of late.

Sorry to inject my personal musings into a book review - but they did impact my experience of the book. In any event - this is a book well worth reading...I guess that's my main point!

Reading this book might change the way you view the world and the food we consume. If you are not ready for a shift in your thinking, you are not ready for this book. I would have given it 5 stars but the writing style lags a little. The content, however, makes up for it.

Yikes! What hath modern man wrought???

What a fascinating book. I'm a consultant who travels and eats out a lot, and I considered myself to be a casual foodie. Let's just say that ignorance may be bliss with regards to where the edibles come from, the definition of organic, the nasty details of slaughter houses, etc. I also found the background information on farmer incentives and economics interesting (particularly in the wake of the current prices of wheat). I feel I should have known much of this, but I didn't - and I found it to be great reading. I liken this to "Kitchen Confidential" in some ways (in terms of value of content for foodies, not tone). Eating is a part of all of our lives, yet we take the proverbial making the sausage part for granted. As an aside, I got the Kindle edition and found that the price was better than what I found in local bookstores.

Omnivore's Dilemma is a wonderfully written book which covers all aspects of food in today's world. Michael Pollan starts by taking a close look at industrial agriculture from the view point of Corn. A plant that is tailor made to our mass production, fossil fuel dependent agricultural ways. Corn farmers benefit from government subsidies that guarantee the farmer a minimum price per bushel. This has led to an overproduction of corn which has further led to corn based products inundating nearly every food shelf in today's supermarkets. Our farm animals are also raised on diets consisting largely of corn. Yet industrial corn farming, as the author explains, causes much harm. The rich fertile soil in the Midwest is eroding at a rapid pace. The fast growth of corn requires copious quantities of fertilizer in addition to insecticide. Chemical fertilizers seep into the streams and rivers and have caused an immense zone deplete of Oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico. Industrial farming methods have also increased our dependence on fossil fuels. By some estimates, one calorie of corn requires on average ten calories of fossil fuel before it reaches the consumer.
Michael Pollan discusses how we raise meat in this country. Take the millions of steaks served all across the country every day. The cattle slaughtered were mostly raised on a CAFO(Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) on a diet that evolution ill suited them to eat. A diet consisting largely of Corn. The Angus cattle spend most of their lives on lots devoid of grass or vegetation and full of eye irritating dust. They spend their lives ankle deep in their excrement and require antibiotics and anti parasitic drugs to survive until slaughter. They suffer from acidosis of the rumen, an organ evolved to break down the cellulose in grass. The E-Coli that sicken so many Americans every year are of a strain that adapted to survive in the now more acid rumen and which now can survive our acidic stomachs to make us sick.
Michael Pollan contrasts this form of agriculture to a farm in Virginia that raises chickens(broilers and eggs), and Cattle on only grass. The cattle feed on luscious grass kept that way by rotating the cattle from one area of the pasture to another to avoid overgrazing. The chickens feed on the grass and insects attracted to the farm life. The grass benefits by the natural fertilizer these animals provide. The farm is as productive per acre as an Industrial farm yet there are no hidden costs. No animal suffering, fertilizer runoffs, government subsidies, and the carbon footprint is far less.
Although the author does not devote a chapter on health and food, the health implications of how we grow our food is a common theme throughout the book. The organic food industry is talked about in length. The origins of the term 'Organic' as well as how that term has now been co-opted by large industrial food producers thanks in large part to the federal department of agriculture. The book slips into the esoteric realm of philosophy of food on more than one occasion, but the forays are usually brief and welcome.
How to grow food for 300 million people is immensely challenging. Especially since we're all so used to such a varied diet year round (strawberries in January). Yet there are costs to the way we grow our food that are not paid at the supermarket register. These hidden costs are in the form of environmental damage, governmental subsidies sought by a very powerful farm lobby, and even national security costs in having a food supply so dependent on fossil fuels supplied by foreign countries. Eating local, the author strongly suggests, could be a viable alternative. Expenditure on energy for transportation would be significantly cut, and a firsthand knowledge of where and how the food you consume would be gained. This might seem like a small benefit but the author argues that this could potentially be positivelytranformative in the quality of the food we eat.
Although this isn't a diet book, you can't help but change your eating habits after reading this book. I learned a great deal. I highly recommend it.

I eagerly opened this book and plunged into a morass of words. How many does it take to complete a thought. Couldn't the author have read and applied Zinsser's book "On Writing Well" before tackling this meaty subject?


The content is right on, but the message was obscured by the prose. Too bad. I would have liked to have finished it, but by the time I read a complete sentence or paragraph, there so many modifiers and conditional phrases, I lost the main point. I found it boring because of that.

If someone edited this book, pulled out the content buried within and tightened his writing, Mr. Pollan could have made his point much better.

I have really nothing to add that wasn't already covered in earlier reviews, except to say that I too am absolutely absorbed by this book, it's informative, interesting, relevant and the writing style is simply captivating. I can't put it down!

"TOD" is not an easy read, and a takes a bit of time to get into, but it's incredibly absorbing. I learned a ton -- about where our food comes from, how it's made and processed, and how "organic" isn't really all that "organic" or necessarily good for the planet. Reading this book has changed my food choices for the better and really made me think about what I eat and select.

I'll tell you this -- I haven't had McDonald's in 9 months, and will never eat there again, not even in an emergency. (This healthy choice owed to this book, + the documentary "king corn," which features Pollan; and "Super Size Me" and "Fast Food Nation," which I also highly recommend.)

Buy this book, and eat healthy!

Pollan's book takes a dry and somewhat elitist look the state of the human diet and more specifically, the American diet. He investigates three meals (I'm not sure where the fourth one from the subtitle came from), fast food, organic, and a hunter/gatherer meal. What he finds is interesting and thought-provoking, much of which supports the findings I wrote about in The Evolution Diet: we are extremely removed from what we were designed to eat.

The author's personal experiences make up the majority of this lengthy book, and his interactions with some of the characters in the food procurement industry is insightful if drawn out. The section on the hunter/gatherer meal was the most appealing (naturally), and despite the glaring flaw of 'preparing a hunter/gatherer meal', it was freer from contradiction than the other sections. Pollan rightly attacks the socialism that has led to a national food industry that pumps unrecognizable processed material into our stomachs, but he fails to notice that Roosevelt's socialism is just as detrimental as Nixon's. As Pollan quotes an interesting farmer Joel Salatin in the book, "You can't regulate integrity".

Pollan doesn't commit to a diet plan for the reader--he admits that the extreme meals (fast and slow) should only be an annual ceremonial meal--but the stories that he conveys will no doubt lead the reader to a healthier lifestyle. For specifics on that healthier lifestyle, please feel free to reference The Evolution Diet, mentioned above.

The book came on time and in great condition. I am still reading it now (on meal three) and finding out a lot of things that I did not know and other things that I have just turned a blind eye to. If you want to really get your intelligence started in finding out what you are eating and how it has changed from the good ole days...start here.

The fact is that we're omnivores. Huge number of vegetables (but not all), fruits (but not all), fish (but not all), and other sources (but not all) will feed us quite nicely. So, once the toxicity question is out of the way, and it's a big one, the dilemma remains: what's for supper? Why? How did it get there? What moral statement does that make? And how much do you really enjoy eating it? Feeding is a biological function, but dining is an art form, or should be. Which are you doing?

Pollan throws himself into these questions' answers. He traces a set of meals from their origin to his pan and palate. It turns out that each trace represents a specific set of human values, societal norms, and decisions that most people rarely realize have been made. His hi-tech foray starts with one of the earliest and most bizarre of genetic engineering feats: the neolithic taming of corn, making the species utterly dependent on agriculture for reproduction. He then follows modern corn from the field to the feedlot, where it fattens a cow ankle-deep in manure, to the ominously closed gates of the slaughterhouse - "food security," or so they say. In other adventures, he converts the animal to meat with his own hands. It happens once at a farm that's gone back to the ideals of organic farming but with different goals, and again as a modern hunter-gatherer.

Each trek ends in a finished meal. His family consumes the modern industrialized McMeal on the road, but he shepherds the others through his kitchen and onto the plates of his friends and family. At every step, he considers the substance of the food, along with the many social ramifications of each part of its preparation. Some episodes amuse, others appall to some extent, as they should. All of them, however, inform and invite the readers to consider their own lives and means of staying alive. Just what are you eating? And why?

-- wiredweird

Ignorance is not bliss. Everyone should know where their food comes from. This is a shot in the arm, a real eye opener. We are destroying ourselves with the food we eat and the way we grow it.

A fascinating, eye-opening read. Not many non-fiction books keep me up late at night reading!

I am a veterinarian and frequently hear pet owners say that they won't feed X brand of food to their dogs because the first ingredient is corn. After reading this book, I think: at least the dog food is honest. I just grabbed a random product from my pantry shelf to read the ingredient list. Enchilada sauce: just tomatoes and spices, right? Wrong. It contains modified corn starch, monosodium glutamate, citric acid and hydrolyzed vegetable protein: all corn by-products.

Mr. Pollan has definitely made me more aware of what my family is eating.

The author makes every effort to trace meals in four categories from the table to the soil. The meals are categorized as industrial, industrial organic, beyond organic, and self-produced, each with its own section. They are four very different meals with four very different back-stories, and in each section there are very different characters that help Pollan, and us, understand the characteristics of the food on which he focuses. By sharing what he learned through his determined efforts to examine the minute history of his food, Pollan forces the reader to reexamine their own choices and question the healthfulness, sustainability, and even morality of their diet. These histories are brought forth so richly and in such vivid, sometimes horrifying detail, that I challenge any consumer of food to read this book and be unmoved. This book speaks so fundamentally to the issue of what to eat that it should be the first stop of anyone interested in diet, health, and the social impact of food.
Although the tone of the book is generally objective when presenting the facts and history of each meal, about which he is meticulous, Pollan is open and honest about his personal feelings and difficulties along the way. He makes every attempt to address all sides of the issues he encounters and to understand each one fully, but this is not a scientific treatise; it is a well-researched voyage of personal discovery, and it is plain to the reader how the author views the morality of his discoveries. His portrayal of all the people and choices he encounters is sympathetic, but Pollan's opinions are perfectly clear.
What makes this book so compelling is that it throws into sharp relief the histories of meals eaten by the reader, histories previously unknown and unthought of. The order of presentation draws the reader in by first addressing the meal with which they are likely to be most familiar. By addressing the industrial meal and its many flaws, Pollan encourages his reader to see this meal for what it really is. If the natural conclusion that most readers would come to after this realization is to turn to the ever-growing and easily accessible organic market, Pollan's logical follow-up is a dissection of that same organic industry, exposing its failures as well as its achievements. He then continues on to a meal ("beyond organic") that seems to be a better alternative and explains exactly why. Then lastly, he follows this train of thought even farther by addressing the morality and feasibility of a meal made by humanity's original method.
I found this book absolutely fascinating and highly disturbing. Although the first half of the book was extremely upsetting to me in many ways, there was a great deal of hopefulness as well, and I felt that by making educated food choices, I could do well by myself and the world at large.