It will change the way you think about food. I will never look at a can of corn the same way.

I found Michael Pollan's book to be quite informative and interesting. The strength of the book was the detailing of much of the modern food chain and our dependence on but a very few staple items, namely corn and soy, to supply a very high percentage of our caloric needs. The percentage of our total caloric needs ultimately supplied by corn is quite amazing. There are many interesting facts that should make readers much more interested in a more varied diet, and making sure the food they eat is as nutritional as it should be. The weakness of the book was in Pollan's assertion that "humans invented morality", but he was in moral turmoil over the morality of killing/eating meat. If you honestly believe that matter plus time pus chance = you, it's hard to see how this turmoil emerges. Only if morality is not invented, but objective, does the issue of how we treat animals have any moral force. The author appears to reject this underlying true objective morality all the while wringing his hands over what he ought to eat, and how we treat the animals we raise conforms to a true objective morality. He obviously doesn't believe that "humans invented morality". I guess that's just the moral ambiguity you need to get on the New York Times Books of the year list. We should obviously be as kind as possible to the animals under our care, and we should, as Pollan asserts, make our food chain as transparent as possible, which would affect a positive change in that direction. The first step in trying to figure out what we should do is trying to figure out if there is anything we should do. There obviously is-but the author cannot get you there.

Like any really great natural history, The Omnivore's Dilemma is not so much about what we eat, but who we are. The book has three main sections - highly-processed (corn-driven) food, local/organic food and self-caught food.

The first part on processed food is a thoughtful expose of how culturally removed we've become from the vast majority of the food we consume - removed from its irresponsible calorie content, desensitized to the lives of the animals we consume, and out of touch with its underlying often senseless economics. Like with Morgan Spurlock's "Supersize Me", your perspective on McDonald's will be forever changed.

The second part of local/organic food is more uplifting. Pollan shows the difficult, but also bright future, for organic and local eating. The lesson seems to be if government got out of the way of small producers, they could blossom and grow more significantly.

The third part - hunting and foraging for one's own food - is a wonderful look at the joys and moral conflict of catching one's own food, from the perspective of doing it for the first time. Pollan's reflections on the grace of nature's bounty are thoughtful and grateful.

The author concludes with a short meditation on what's he's discovered researching how we eat. The ending seemed terse, with much left unsaid, but is still satisfying.

I listened to The Omnivore's Dilemma unabridged on audio CD narrated by Scott Brick. Brick gives a fine performance, confident but questioning, appropriately humble for the author's ambitious search and thoughtful reflections.

I especially recommend this book to anyone in the food and beverage industry.

Like any really great natural history, The Omnivore's Dilemma is not so much about what we eat, but who we are. The book has three main sections - highly-processed (corn-driven) food, local/organic food and self-caught food.

The first part on processed food is a thoughtful expose of how culturally removed we've become from the vast majority of the food we consume - removed from its irresponsible calorie content, desensitized to the lives of the animals we consume, and out of touch with its underlying often senseless economics. Like with Morgan Spurlock's "Supersize Me", your perspective on McDonald's will be forever changed.

The second part of local/organic food is more uplifting. Pollan shows the difficult, but also bright future, for organic and local eating. The lesson seems to be if government got out of the way of small producers, they could blossom and grow more significantly.

The third part - hunting and foraging for one's own food - was a wonderful look at the joy and moral conflict of catching one's own food for someone hunting and foraging for the first time. Pollan's reflections on the grace of nature's bounty are thoughtful and filled with gratitude.

Pollan concludes with a short meditation on what's he's discovered researching the different modes of how we eat. The ending seemed terse, with more left unsaid, but it was still satisfying.

I listened to The Omnivore's Dilemma unabridged on audio CD narrated by Scott Brick. Brick gives a fine performance, confident but questioning, curious and thoughtful throughout, appropriately humble for the author's grand search and reflections.

I especially recommend this book to anyone in the food and beverage industry.

I was disappointed that the book was offered for purchase, but several days later, I was informed that I would reeive a refund because it was not available from the vendor. No offer was made to suggest the book from an alternate source. I had always assumed that if a book was listed, it would be available, and that the listing would be removed when there were no more to be sold.

As omnivores, this book proposes, our lives are complicated by the question of what to eat in this landscape of plentiful food. The author starts with the most common options--processed supermarket foods and fast food. Tracing these meals backward, he finds an unbelievably tangled system that urges farmers to grow vast amounts of unneeded corn at low prices that are then subsidized by the government. Getting rid of this excess of corn then becomes the driving force behind factory farms, where animals are kept in deplorable conditions and pumped with antibiotics to keep their bodies from breaking down.

Pollan's investigation of mainstream organic farms didn't paint a much better picture, despite the assumption that organic animals are better treated.

Moving toward smaller farms, though, Pollan finds an entirely different attitude, a respect for animals and the rhythms of nature.

Pollan finishes off his quest with a hunter-gatherer mission, and he experiences the difficulty and satisfaction of killing and scavenging a meal from his immediate environment.

I liked the details of this narrative, and the way the facts of factory farming were presented in a way that made the situation clear without seeming to be overly sensationalized. I also liked that Pollan discussed in detail his thoughts about vegetarianism and the reasons why he chose not to go that way, even after seeing how animals were killed and prepared.

Before reading this book, I had a vague idea of the meat industry, of course. Reading this book clarified the situation for me, though, and made me start thinking about the sacrifices I might be willing to make in my own life and my own budget in order to eat more fresh and local foods.

As a teacher and omnivorous reader, I evaluate books in terms of "is this something I wish students would read?" (or- is the time invested worth the knowledge gained?) This one earns a qualified "yes". The qualifier is simply that many of them wouldn't read a non-fiction book of this length without a weapon pointed to their heads. But the combination of easy to understand science and personal example is exactly what can encourage students to begin learning outside of the standards-based curriculum that has come to rule education today.


Aside from all that, why do I like this book? My mom was the original "eat your vegetables" mom. Every dinner, she said, should have at least two vegetables; one green. We lived far from the urban centers, so local produce was easy to find. I early on noticed the difference between my grandfather's tomatoes and those from the supermarket.Then I lived in New Orleans where the Whole Foods Coop was walking distance from my apartment. When I became a mom, I used a little grinder to prepare my own baby food.
Time marches on. Now I work full time outside of the house, and am happy with myself if I manage one fruit and two veggies in a whole day to offer to the kids. But I still care about what we eat, and wish we had more viable options to our perfectly beautiful supermarket food, which I suspect to be less than "wholesome".
Maybe with education, we can create more demand, and give more people the option to choose healthier food, and support small scale sustainable farming. I think this book a valuable contribution to that goal.

The author does an excellent job of explaining how ethics, policy, biology, culture and big business are connected and have shaped the foods that we eat today. Many of our eating habits in the Western diet simply do not make sense and ultimately have global repurcussions.

The author raises many good questions without sounding moralistic or judgemental. Why eat imported organic produce from a foreign country if the shipper burns huge quanitities of fossil fuels to deliver it to you? Why continue to feed cattle corn when their stomachs cannot digest it? Can we really say a food product has "natural raspberry flavor" when the flavor is actually derived from corn?

I enjoyed this author's writing style so well that I will likely buy his other book, "In Defense of Food".

Pollan gives us a ton of information about food production in hopes that we can treat our meals with a little more reverence and understanding. Unfortunately, since I've read the book, I think I feel more food-related anxiety than appreciation. I can't go into a grocery store without having panic attacks. Sweaty palms and irregular breathing on Aisle 2. Seriously.

The truth is, there's a lot to be nervous (and furious) about when you start looking closely at large-scale agrobusiness. And there doesn't seem to be any easy way out. Pollan has done some incredible research here, and although he sometimes slips into foodie-self-indulgence, the book is both interesting and affecting.

All of the information in the book is something a well informed person should know. It was an interesting journey though, and quite an easy eye opening read. Highly recommended.

Journalist Michael Pollan has written what appears on the surface to be a boring book. He decides to eat four meals and explore the history and consequences of each. He chooses an industrial agricultural meal (fast food), a large-scale organic meal, locally raised farm meal and finally he hunts and gathers his last meal.

By capturing the social, economic, and ecological as well as the moral, and ethical consequences of each meal, Pollan has written a modern day masterpiece on a task most people take for granted - eating their lunch. It's an intricately woven narrative with a massive amount of pain-staking research. But one thing "The Omnivore's Dilemma" is not is boring. Its captivating reading.

It should be required reading for anyone who as eaten a Big Mac or thinks that shopping at Whole Foods is going to save the planet. Every food item people purchase and consume is a political statement and has rippling effects on their health, the environment, and our society. Pollan has written a wake-up call to all of us.

And for those vegetarians out there? Pollan makes one of the best arguments I've ever read about why vegetarians are inherently hypocritical and why the vegetarian lifestyle may be more unnatural and nature defying than any other diet.

Here are some of the highlights from Pollan's fascinating book:

* Meat might not be that bad for people. The problem is the way we raise cattle. Cows evolved to eat grass. Their stomachs are complicated six chambered organs designed to break down and digest grasses. Industrial raised cattle are fed ground up corn, which is unhealthy for them. As a result, the cattle become ill and the corn has to be injected with antibiotics and other chemicals. It's the corn that marbles beef and causes it to be unhealthy. "In the same way ruminants are ill adapted to eating corn, humans in turn may be poorly adapted to eating ruminants that eat corn," according to Pollan.

* Cattle are fed corn for about 150 days before they are slaughtered. It's a good thing because it is unlikely that cattle could survive the chemical-laced corn diet for much longer than that. Even at 150 days, most of the cattle we eat are sick.

* Food companies have an enormous challenge in order to grow and meet Wall Street expectations. The biggest problem: "fixed stomach." People can only consume a limited amount of food each year - about 1,500 pounds. So food companies are forced to do one of two things: entice people to eat more or convince them to pay more for what they already eat. This has lead to the development of a new type of corn starch which has zero calories. In other words, the food companies are on the verge of developing food with no calories so you can eat as much as you like.

* A child in the U.S. born in 2000 has a one in three chance of being diabetic.

* Hunger is complicated in human beings due to our feast or famine digestive system. As a result of this evolutionary trait humans won't stop eating when they are full. In fact, when presented with an overabundance of food, human will eat up to 30 percent more. It's one of the reasons why "super-sizing" portions has worked so well at fast food chains.

* There is butane in chicken McNuggets. Why? Lighter fluid apparently adds freshness. The FDA allows 0.02 percent of the chemical TBHQ in food. That's kind of them because one gram of TBHQ causes: "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, and a sense of suffocation and collapses." Five grams of TBHQ kills human beings.

* People in the U.S. each more corn than any other food. Corn byproducts are in nearly everything we consume. A breakdown of corn in a typical McDonald's meal looks like this: Soda (100 percent corn), milk shake (78 percent), salad dressing (65 percent), chicken nuggets (56 percent), cheeseburger (52 percent), and French fries (23 percent).

* The organic food movement is starting to look a lot like big business. The grocery chain Whole Foods, for example, buys most of its food from two enormous organic food companies Earthbound Farms and Grimmway Farms - rarely buying food for local farms. For example, milk can be called organic and the only difference in treatment and conditions for the cows is that they are fed organic corn instead of regular corn. Cows, of course, don't naturally eat corn.

* Under pressure from big organic farms, the U.S. government allows synthetic additive including "guar and xanthan gum" and "carrageenan" to be called organic. That's why consumers can buy organic TV dinners, which, if you think about it, isn't really possible.

* Lots of organic farming operations uses fraudulent claims to entice people. A perfect example are chickens. Pollan visited a farm that claimed its birds were "range free." This conjures images of uncaged birds roaming grassy lots. He found these chickens in a shed crammed with 20,000 birds - fed, of course, organic corn. They got to call the birds range free because there was a door on the side of the shed that lead to a small fenced in yard. But the door is only unlocked after the chickens were five to six weeks old. They are slaughtered two weeks later.

* Mushrooms are not plants - they are fungi and actually closer related to animals than plants. There is a fungi in Michigan that takes up more than 40 acres and may be centuries old.

* Pollan takes on the vegetarian mentality. He says the concept of "mourning" the death of an animal is a new modern emotion - a departure from the way nature is. Death - animals killing other animals for food - is the way nature was designed. It's the grand design.

Read more "Literate Blather" at the Dark Party Review [...]

Let me put it out front -- I'm an omnivore and nothing in the book changes that. What has changed is my entire way of looking at food. The book is loaded with information that makes one reconsider the mix of foods you eat. What I like is that it does this while not telling the reader precisely what foods to eat and what foods to avoid. Rather, the emphasis is on balance and on knowing something about where your food comes from. This is a subject for which too many authors become preachy, but not Pollan.

Do not, repeat, do not believe the majority of reviews about this book. I should've known better as I first read "Botany of Desire", and gave a review. I thought that book was interminable, and this is even worse. Don't get me wrong there is some information within the pages, however, it goes on and on, almost without end. I persisted till I was almost, but not quite finished, and just could no longer bear the boredom. I persevered through "The Corn", barely got through "The Grasses", and almost made it through "The Forest", but the story on Fungi got the best of me, and "The Perfect Meal" did me in. I actually put the book down and stated aloud, "enough - I can't take it anymore". Life is too short, and time too valuable to waste it on this tripe.

A very engaging look at the food industry. Mainly answers the questions: "What it is we're eating? Where it came from? How it found its way to our table?" But: "What should you eat?" is in the end left to you and a zillion diet books. How about just fish and vegetables? That apparently is what some Japanese mountaineers in their seventies are eating in preparation for an attempt to become the oldest people to summit Mt. Everest.

I have been reading a lot about food and nutrition and was really fastinated with the information in this book. It is a fun read but I was kind of worried that it might be sort of one-sided politically (many on the subject seem a bit one-sided and you wonder if you are getting the full story). The book seems refreshingly objective and dispassionate to me as far as the imformation about food, etc. It was made more interesting by Michael explaining his own person journey of discovery and his thoughts, feelings and self-examinations along the way. Get your older kids to read this book and they will never look at a McDonald's meal the same way again!

This book puts a light on how we grow our food and where our food comes from. Its highlights the dangers of eating some foods that we would normally eat everyday. I absolutely loved this book, I'm sure if you are interested in going organic this is a must read!

"Omnivore's Dilemma" takes the title from the concept that eating can be risky -- is that a good mushroom or will it make me sick? You have to take chances to learn about food, or find some other way to test it. Pollan follows the most common food ingredients through the chain and, ultimately, I think that what he has uncovered is that the Standard American Diet is making us sick.

This isn't exactly news -- Pollan's story and the way he illustrates the food chain, processing and consumption patterns is engaging and moves along at a great pace. It feels more like a description of a personal journey which I think would make this very appealing to a lot of people. It's not very didactic, and there are some funny parts in there. The chapters on hunting and mushroom hunting gave me some giggles.

Bottom line - don't eat processed food, support local farmers, even if they aren't necessarily organic (ask about "pesticide free" produce) and stop eating things that aren't food.

What struck me most while reading this book was discovering along with the writer how little I know about where my food comes from, how it reaches me and what has been done to it along the way. Very rewarding were Pollan's sense of curiosity, courage, determination and integrity in looking at the truth of industrialized food, to pulling the trigger in the forest, hauling hay, standing knee-deep in excrement with "534", and firing up the grill for the sake of having an authentic knowledge, not just a label with a barcode. And it started to bother me that I really had no idea where my (extremely important and life-sustaining) food had come from or how much coordinated effort it took to get it to me.

I know I will never see through the same lens when I step foot in a supermarket, grocery store, convenience store or restaurant. I will think twice about eating corn-fed meat, not for a moral repulsion to eating meat, but for a moral repulsion to the way our country obtains our meat and what they stuff our animals with before we ingest. If our industrial abattoirs cannot be humane, then perhaps we can't call our civilization civilized.

Yes, every eater - herbivore, carnivore, omnivore - should read this book! Pollan has an honest voice and an engaging way with words.

This is an amazing book. It may sound extreme, but the information in this is mindblowing.

Not only is it extremely well written, but it explores the different sides of the same topic, giving you multiple perspectives.

I had started reading my friend's copy on a visit, and had to order the book immediately so that I could continue reading it...and have struggled to put the book down every day since.

Healing the Rift: Merging Science and Spirituality

As a scientist and biotechnology executive I was intimately involved in the food industry for over a decade and visited agricultural sites in over a dozen countries on four continents. I applaud Pollan's expose' of of modern agriculture's cost.

Michael Pollan exposes the high price we pay for industrialization of food production. The fact that the majority of deaths are caused by the Western diet and many of the major diseases are a result of how and what we eat is incalculable in economic terms. The damage to the environment from industrialized farming is staggering. The sacrifice to food quality and nutritional benefits are explained by Pollan.

A must read! Then get Pollan's In Defense of Food.

Probably the most important book about the state of food in this country, and maybe the world. Michael Pollan's calm voice is the call to tune in, wake up and choose the food you consume rather than give in to corporate and government default as we have been conditioned to do for the last 5 decades. We don't have many ways to "vote" these days except with our money. Buy and eat locally. Its a more important choice than we know. Thanks, Mr. Pollan for your informative look at how we can regain our food autonomy.

Pollan is an extraordinary writer: here he takes a subject that could easily be dry as dirt and turns it into a completely absorbing, thought-provoking tour de force. Though very occasionally overwritten, this book is never boring. It will teach every reader to think twice about both the source and the true cost of the food they eat. Recommended reading for absolutely everyone; even more particularly for anyone with a real interest in food or simply in developing their social conscience.

This is educational/advocating writing at its finest. It is written in an engaging style that makes it easy to read. Yet, at the same time, it manages to fill the pages with facts that are, in themselves, challenging. The book has changed the way I think about food, largely just by making me think about food. This is something we do rarely, but it is becoming more and more necessary as food has become a concoction of chemicals and corn and has drifted away from being truly based on plants and whole grains. Just the mere information about how the food gets from the factory to you will make you want to reevaluate the way you eat and think about food.

I have recently turned to a diet based on plants, fruits, and whole grains. As someone who loves good cooking and gourmet restaurants, I was a little worried at first. But, the truth is that this kind of cooking can yield some fantastic flavors and awaken taste buds that seem to have been dormant for too long. Though this decision was not a direct result of this book alone, this book helped me figure out the best ways to go about a fundamental change in diet. For further reading on diet and its relationship to health, I also recommend "The China Study."

I went into this book with the expectation it would shove a bunch of ideals down my throat, and try to turn me into a vegan. This couldn't be further from the truth. From the very start of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan simply presents the facts (and his own experiences) and leaves the rest up to you. But even more, he does this with clear, compelling, intelligent writing that truly opens your eyes and makes even the most mundane science about corn more interesting than you could ever imagine. His conclusions are interspersed with fascinating stories about his experiences at farms throughout the country. And his facts are clearly presented and supported by reliable sources and impressive research. No matter how you look at food (or even if you don't, as I hadn't), this book will keep you intrigued and get you thinking about your eating habits. If you leave the book wanting more concrete advice for what to eat (or what not to), check out Pollan's next book, In Defense of Food, (another great read).

Feels good to be aware of what is going on w/ our food, our world, our economy, and others around us. Don't be an Ostrich....

My title says it all. I ripped through the first two-thirds or so thinking this was one of the greatest non-fiction books I've read. I learned a ton about the business of food production I never knew, told in a excellent narrative style that made the book a page-turner. But then he went pig hunting and started to bore the bejesus out of me, and the mushroom hunt was even worse. I finally put the book down during the mushroom chapter, never to pick it up again. Five stars before the pig hunt, one star afterwords.

Ominivore's Dilemma is a must read for those concerned both with the mis-allocation of agricultural resources. Everyone deserves to know what Pollan tells us: the commodity corn industry has perverted the entire food production process, from the destruction of the land due to overplanting of corn and the intense use of nitrogen-based chemical fertilizers, to the force feeding of corn to beef cattle whose bodies can not naturally tolerate it, to the production of health-destroying products such as high fructose corn syrup and many other ingredients upon which the fast food industry is based. The need for markets for subsidized commodity corn encourages cruel and unsanitary practices in the raising of meat animals and poultry, as well as the production of milk and eggs. Even the organic food industry is caught up in this vicious cycle. While Pollan's style is repetitive and his ultimate solution (completely self-sustaining local food production and consumption) a bit out of reach for most of us, his account is one that every informed citizen should read before he or she makes another food purchase or casts another vote.

Michael Pollan comes through with another excellent book to trace food from the ground to the dinner table. I appreciated his conversational style and narrative that started from step 1 and ended with a dinner with his friends and family. Pollan muddies the waters about how we should be eating - sustainable, not, organic, not, "natural", not - it is certainly complex to figure out what we should be purchasing and eating, and what we should not.

I did appreciate that Pollan calls out a number of shady practices in the organic food world. Free range chicken is not always as described, industrial egg production isn't sustainable, and you probably would not be interested in eating beef from Wal-Mart after finishing the book.

It does not, however, push people to go vegetarian, organic, vegan, or anything outside of our omnivore heritage. In fact, Mr. Pollan goes through a number of excellent arguments about why to eat meat, or not eat meat, depending on the reader's perception. An excellent book that kept my attention straight through.

I am going to write a review here that I am sure that will get pummeled and give me nothing but nasty comments and a billion negative votes. So let me say some good things first. Pollan is a gifted writer, is engaging and entertaining to read. The book and it's premises though are a sure recipe for global disaster. Pollan is more even-handed and fair than most of the books trumpeting the perils of industrial farming, but let me please try to explain why these arguments are dangerously flawed. I will try and give and intelligent and considered response and those of you who must blast back at me, I only ask that your comments are equally considered.

Many people are scared of industrial farming, the inputs that are used, and the genetic engineering that is advancing farm science. Most of these fears are based upon "frankenscience" designed delilberately to be scary. Scary and sensational sells books, magazines, and newsprint. The "organic" label has been profitable to the tune of billions of dollars and will continue to be so. There is so much momentum in the press about the dangers of industrial farming and too much money to be made for it to stop. On the other hand industrial farming is not going to stop either. We have to eat.

In our society the best way to control how people think is to control the questions posed. When industrial farming is discussed it is presumed to be bad because it is "industrial" and there are chemicals involved. Ergo we have the slew of reporting biased against industrial farming. All of these books may even be right and everything they maintain may prove to be true. I doubt it, but even if it so we have a problem that is ignored by the media when experts pontificate about agricultural issues. The question isn't whether industrial farming is good or bad. The real question is, "there are over 6 billion people on the planet, and the population will grow to be over 9 billion. How are we going to feed everybody?"

The prescription of this book, more local farming and more organic food, is simply a recipe for billions of deaths through starvation. Many people hate it when facts don't fit their preconceived notions or agendas. In fact, I never seen a political party that doesn't suffer from this flaw. My response is neither political nor do I have an agenda. Although you may not listen to what I have to say, I feel compelled to try and point out the simple holes in the logic of this book. You may not thank me for it, but at least I will have tried. This book is irrational because it refuses to face the real question of how to feed everyone. A rationalist is a person who plays the hand of cards they are dealt, not the hand of cards they wish they had. They solutions offered in this book amount to playing the cards we wish to have rather than the ones we do have.

Here are the cards. Land can either be good farmland, tolerable farmland, ranch land, or non-arable. All of the good farmland and tolerable farmland in the world is already being farmed. There are no reserves of land in this world that would make good farmland. You can try to farm ranch ground, or poor farm ground, and you can pursue slash and burn farming in rainforests, but the problem is that the land will only be productive for a few years. After that it is uneconomical to farm it. By that I mean you will put more calories into the farming than you can withdraw. Moreover this land then is subject to erosion and other environmental problems. The simple math is this: there are roughly one billion arable hectares in the world and there are just over 6 billion people. Those are the cards we hold. Can we feed everyone? Yes, for now.

Here are the problems with local production and organic food: local production is fabulous when you can do it, but many people do not live where food is produced. Think of New York City. Obviously NYC cannot grow all the food it needs for its population. They need to import food. This is not a new problem. Ancient Rome was entirely dependent upon food produced in Egypt and other provinces. When people choose to live where the food isn't, there is a cost associated with getting the food to those people. There always has been. However, you also can't wish those people to move to where the food is, because their housing would take up all the farmground. So local markets theoretically work great for certain groups, but it is simply not rational to suggest local production as a solution to world food shortages. There is also a reason why the world looks like it does with densely populated non-agricultural areas and thinly populated agricultural ones. People can't live on the good farmground. Plants have to live there. Therefore, when you really think about it, suggesting local production as a solution is just a preconceived bias that in practical application would cause a lot of people to starve. Sure, some people get to live near the food, and it would be more efficient if they would eat the food produced right next to them rather than food that is shipped halfway round the world. Getting people to do so would make the system slightly more efficient, but it is not going to be the solution. It would be a bandaid on a sucking chest wound. Moreover, it wouldn't work anyway....people don't want it. They like eating bananas from central America, grapes from Chile, lamb from New Zealand, cashews from Vietnam, and cornflakes from Michigan. A diet of only local foods would be very bland compared to the diet to which we have become accustomed. So, you can wish for local production all you want, but those pesky humans are going to mess you up every time. They will pay lots of good money to have tasty foods imported from far distant places.

Local production means local foods only. You won't get others to agree to that after they've tasted the goodies of the rest of the world. I sincererly doubt that most readers of this book are actually willing to eat only on what can be organically grown within 20 miles of their residence. If they are not, then they are just chanting, "do as I say, not as I do", which is the fault I find with this book and the author.

Suggesting organic farming as a solution though is frightening. Let's do that simple math again.....one billion hectares and six billion people. Right now, with incredible amounts of oil-based fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, chemical inputs, and, whoa, even scarier, genetic technology, we are just managing to basically keep those six billion people fed. Organic farming does without those inputs....and produces about 1/4 the equivalent yield. If the world switched to organic farming then 4.5 bilion people would have to starve to death. Even if you are willing to become the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world, people are not just going to sit there and slowly starve to death for you. No, they will fight for food for themselves and their children. When you do the math you will realize that organic farming is much more harmful than the "bad meat" chant (I'll get to that in a second). Organic farming simply equates into less food output. Less food = less people. Westerners, in a shocking display of hypocrisy, can extoll the virtues of organic farming, decry the use of chemical inputs, suggest local production, etc., while they are chewing on their bananas, dining in expensive restaurants, wearing their leather shoes, burning their oil in their luxury SUV. But we can't have it both ways. To the third world we appear as insufferable, arrogant, self-righteous, and astoundingly stupid hypocrites. Imagine yourself in a west African village explaining organic food and local market approaches. I've been there....they've done it that way for thousands of years. They'd think you were retarded for suggesting back-breaking labor and risk of starvation to have organic food. They have organic food, and they would love to swap places with you. After trying to grow your own food there for a year, organically, you'd want out too. Those villagers would love the chance to use modern inputs to increase their yields, and a trip to a US grocery store would seem like something out of a fairy tale to them. Before espousing organic farming and local production imagine yourself as the person who had to do the labor, moreover you life depends upon your success, and, additionally, say goodbye to anything more intersting than gruel to eat. This book offers answers that sound great in theory, but in real practice you'd find absolutely horrifying.

There are real problems with industrial agriculture, primarily its dependency on oil, but I'd prefer to see the author looking at the real problems and trying to craft solutions that can actually be made to work. Solutions that the other 6 billion people on the planet can live with and you can live with too.

Complaining about the $75 billion that the feds plug into American agriculture is not very well thought out. I'm not going to defend a single thing the USDA does.....but I am going to defend the reason why it started and why it has to stay. Despite being a capitalist country, we can't not have a safety net in regards to food. If we don't produce enough food in this country then people will DIE. Get it? It's a concept called food security because food is the most important thing in a society. If you don't believe that, just don't eat for two weeks. You can go without gasoline for two weeks, you can sleep outside if you have too, you can live without your DVDs....but try living without food. Since it is the one necessary item before all others, for thousands of years nations have had food security policies and practices. The people in power have to keep the people fed. If they don't, they won't be in power long. The United States is no different and never has been. We have been so blessed with good farmland and good practices that it has been 80 years since we had food shortages. Starvation is not a place any person or any country wants to be. Ergo, governments spend money on agriculture. Yes, sometimes they do stupid things, but food security can't be left to chance. The US Govt is not going to stop, nor should it, implementing policies for our food security. They may not get it right, there may be incompetence and corruption, but it is up to us to do something about it when they get it wrong. We should be deeply thankful that they don't leave food security to the "Free Market".

Another problem overlooked in this book is one of labor. Before the green revolution about 90% of the world population had to work in agriculture. In America today less than 1% of our population has to do so. That frees up the other 99 of us to build cars and houses, write novels, practice medicine, run utilities, make movies and clothing....to do everything that brings us to the level of technology, wealth, and health we enjoy today. Without industrial farming we can't have those 99 people creating and sustaining our level of technology.

One last point. The whole "meat is bad because it takes eight pounds of grain to make one pound of meat". That's just embarassingly wrong, pure proganda, and thankfully Mr. Pollan doesn't fall into this particular trap. What that argument is really saying is that midwestern style feedlots that feed corn to cows are inefficient and oh my gosh! People could eat that corn instead! Then no one would have to starve. I've heard this argument meaning times before, from many likable people. The problem is that it's not true; moreover it is obviously not true if you think about it. It's an argument that serves the agenda of people who don't like people eating meat. It's an effectively convincing lie apparently, but it is misinformation serving to score political points. I don't care if people eat meat or not, but I do care when deliberate misinformation is used to create a public opinion. Well let me point out the glaringly obvious. Most of the livestock in this world, well over 98%, will never see a feedlot and they will never get to eat anything a person would eat. Hunh? What? By using a small fact, that to fatten a cow in a Kansas feedlot can take eight pounds of corn to creat one pound of gain, and shouting that to the world, you're left to assume that all meat takes eight pounds of grain to create. Not so. No, most of the cows, goats, sheep, chicken, and other beasties in the world that are slated to be our dinners eat things like grass, insects and weeds. Things we can't eat. In fact, I could make a perfectly good argument that based upon on the meat produced for consumption in the world, against all the grain used to create that meat, that it only take 2 ounces of grain to make one pound of meat! Therefore by not eating meat we're going to cause everyone to starve. As Mark Twain once said, "there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics". Watch out for the lies and the damn liles, but never believe a statistic. Not even mine. Also be careful of believing what others tell you without thinking it through. If you think about it yourself you will realize that most livestock in the world forage for their food. They're not eating anything a human would eat. The "meat is inefficient" argument is only true if applied to an American feedlot and even then it is still specious (a damn lie) for two reasons. Here is the first reason: even those 2% of animals who get to spend a few weeks eating corn and millet in a Kansas feedlot, so that they wind up tasting better to us, still aren't eating human food. Pollan points out they are eating corn that humans can't eat and wouldn't want to eat. Therefore it is a damn lie that what the feedlot cow ate can have been equivalent to 8 times more food for the starving whomever. Now, the anti-meat group's rejoinder is going to be, "yeah, but the land that grows that non-human corn could have been used to grow real human food." Not really. Anti-meat people, because of their bias, tend not to really undrestand much about agriculture as a science. Yes, some of that land used to produce corn to feed cows could be put into human food production; and I guarantee once the need for it is there it will be put into human food production. Farmers make a lot more money on human food than they do on animal feed (humans have more disposable income than cows). So again, the implication of the anti-meat crowd is that we lost 8 times the calories we could have had....not true. If we needed those calories then humans would have gotten them and the pro-meat crowd would have to eat veal rather than steak. Humans are going to get fed before cows do. But the real problem with the "that land could have grown human food" argument is that it is wrong. Those people, because they don't know even the basics about agriculture, conveniently leave out the need for a little thing called crop rotation. It means you don't keep planting the exact same crop over and over again in the same place. You have to rotate crops. Some of our major crops, such as millet, sorghum, and corn, are grown for reasons other than direct human consumption. That turns out to be handy because it means we can rotate crops and keep yields up year after year. Let me try to explain. I could plant wheat five times in a row, but my yields will fall if I do. If I rotate millet into the cycle then maybe I only grow wheat three years and millet one year and sunflower seeds one year during a five year cycle. However, I'll have as much wheat out of my farm as you will have on yours if you tried growing wheat five times in a row. So it turns out the the millet I feed to my dairy or beef cows didn't really cost the world any extra food, did it? Indeed, now I get to eat milk, cheese and ice cream, maybe even a steak once in a while....

Most arguments about food production can be picked apart like I tried to do in the above. The arguments are created to support someone's idea of how they think things should be. They have an agenda, and then they seek facts to support their agenda. I don't have an agenda, but I do see that we have problems. An increasing world population, decreasing genetic variety, soil getting tired, erosion, lack of technology, experience, and inputs for Africa and much of the rest of the third world, depleting phospate reserves, depleting oil reserves, and inconstant weather are all going to be challenges as we go forward. I'd love to see a well-reasoned and rationally sound blueprint that, politics and agendas aside, considers how we are really going to feed 6 billion people now, 9 billion people in 30 years, and how to do it consistently for the next thousand years. This is the real question, and billions of people are relying on us to provide real solutions, ones that everyone can live with. This book unfortunately doesn't do that.

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.