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.

This is one of those books that makes you realize how little thought we give to our daily routines. In this book, Pollan takes you on a journey from the farm to the table. He researched his subject carefully. His conversational tone helped helped this very long book flow easily. My favorite part was when he challenged himself to eat an animal that he had to kill...very difficult to do if you're used to thinking of your meat as a grocery aisle product. The chapter on organic and local produce was also very informative. Perhaps we will see more farms practicing the grass-fed cows/grub-fed chicken/grass rotation methods.
I highly recommend this book.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: Lunch for Lefties

This book about the food industry could be used as a litmus test for politics. If you're secular, gourmet, elitist, fond of big government and organized labor, opposed to capitalism and free trade, disdainful of new technology, naïve about how food is produced nowadays, and enamored of Europe as a model for America, you'll think this book is great. Your biases match those of the author.

If you are grateful for the ample, affordable, immensely varied food supply you find in America, and realize it comes to you from hard-working hands employed in for-profit businesses, operating in a free market economy, with help from technology and God, this book will make you angry. If you are informed about agriculture, if you are politically conservative or libertarian, you'll absolutely hate this book.

Unfortunately, The Omnivore's Dilemma is a bestseller. It was first published in 2006 and reprinted as a paperback in 2007, so there are thousands of copies in the hands of readers, giving them a feast of misinformation designed to warp their views.

I understand why this book sold well. The author does a good job of weaving together facts and personal experiences into an entertaining, occasionally humorous narrative. The style and anecdotal structure remind me of fellow pop nonfiction writer Bill Bryson (author of A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail and other delights). I prefer Bryson because he has no political axe to grind, and Pollan clearly does. He teaches journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and writes for The New York Times Magazine, making him a card-carrying member of the left-wing media elite, dedicated to organizing all facts to serve the cause.

On the surface, this book is about food production in America. The author surveys the entire spectrum of food sources, from the most industrial to the most primitive. He provides eye-witness accounts of visits to a large corn farm in Iowa, a feedlot in Kansas, two large organic production facilities in California, and a small organic farm in Virginia. He also reports experiences boar hunting and mushroom gathering. The book culminates in a meal he prepares for friends, using all foraged ingredients. All well and good.

The problem I have with the book is that it pretends to be about food, but it's really about food politics. Leftist propaganda intrudes like a nasty additive in an otherwise tasty dish. The book is a polemic in the vein of Roger Moore's and Al Gore's movies. Pollan presents best-case examples of food production he admires, and worst-case examples of production that doesn't jive with his ideology: His description of the sustainable organic farm in Virginia makes it seem idyllic and his descriptions of the corn farm and feedlot make them seem awful. It's argument by anecdote.

The most offensive part of the book is the section on corn, America's largest crop and a major export, the primary feed grain for livestock and poultry, also used to make ethanol fuel. From the mainstream point of view, hybrid corn is a godsend, part of the `green revolution' of higher-yielding grains that has enabled the world to continue to feed itself despite enormous population growth. Without hybrid corn, wheat, and rice, many more people would go hungry.

Pollan disparages corn as the "protocapitalist grain" and doesn't have much positive to say about it. He describes a visit to a part of Iowa where farmers have abandoned the eco-friendly tradition of rotating crops between grain and legumes such as soybeans and now grow nothing but corn, even though overall corn production exceeds demand and prices sometimes fail to cover the cost of production. (The book was published before the 2007 expansion of the federal subsidy for corn ethanol and subsequent price increase.) The author blames corn mono-cropping for soil erosion, overuse of pesticides and herbicides, and pollution of ground and runoff water from overuse of nitrogen fertilizer (in place of nitrogen supplied naturally by legumes). Because corn is also the source of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) used in junk food, Pollan blames it for America's epidemic of obesity and Type II diabetes.

Facts that don't support the author's negative views are missing. He dwells on corn monocropping but fails to point out that most farmers still practice crop rotation; U.S. farmers will grow several billion bushels of soybeans in 2008; alfalfa is also widely cultivated. He criticizes genetically modified hybrid seed but ignores recent breakthroughs in plant genetics, such as corn hybrids resistant to the root borer, eliminating the need for pesticides. He also fails to mention the ultimate goal of plant breeders, expected within a few years: grain hybrids that `fix' nitrogen so no fertilizer will be needed. He criticizes corn farmers for depending on imported oil for fuel but fails to mention homegrown wind or methane alternatives. He disparages meat and dairy products from corn-fed `factory farms' but deemphasizes the growing market share of soy alternatives He disparages MacDonald's for selling corn-fed meat and soda full of HCFS, but doesn't tell us how much healthy bottled water and salads they sell....

Pollan's anecdotal sources speak for him, spewing left-of-mainstream views. He portrays his spokesmen in a sympathetic light, so when they serve as his political mouthpiece, the reader is tempted to adopt their views, even when there are no statistics or coherent arguments to back them up. For example, he quotes an Iowa farmer who cynically says he grows corn for "the military-industrial complex" and declares, "The free market has never worked in agriculture and it never will." The farmer disparages the `cheap food' legislation enacted during the Nixon era, and recommends a return to the previous policy. The farmer is president of the National Family Farm Coalition, which according to its website, represents farmers who are against free trade, against big business, against GMO foods, and in favor of more government involvement--views not at all representative of mainstream Iowa farmers. And Pollan only interviews that one farmer. He doesn't interview any economist or recognized farm policy expert.

Later in the book, Pollan steps out from behind his source-puppets to reveal his own views: "A tension has always existed between the capitalist imperative to maximize efficiency at any cost and the moral imperatives of culture, which historically have served as a counterweight to the moral blindness of the market. This is another example of the cultural contradictions of capitalism--the tendency over time for the economic impulse to erode the moral underpinnings of society. Mercy toward the animals in our case is one such casualty." (p. 318) Gawd.

Despite the consistent ultra-leftward lean, Pollan never admits that his or his subjects' views are not mainstream. It's obvious he hopes readers will be naïve enough to fall for his arguments and adopt similar views. He's evangelizing.

Pollan indulges in a `golden age phallacy' of nostalgia for the pre-Nixon years when farms were smaller, crop rotation was more widely practiced and fewer chemicals were used. If we believe his Iowa source's views coincide with his own, he recommends a return to the federal subsidy system of those years. What he fails to point out is, that program was a failure. It took grain off the market to prevent oversupply and limited soil erosion through the acreage set-aside, but its low support price and bulging reserve kept prices low. Per capita farm income in the 1960's remained insufficient, and the numbers of farmers began to decline as the younger generation left the farm for better-paying careers. Small farmers and livestock operators began to go out of business because they couldn't compete with larger farms operating with better economy of scale and lower cost of production. Thus, the industrialization of agriculture began in the 1960's. Why should we go back to the policies and practices of that era? Can we go back? No, of course not. The world has billions more people than it did fifty years ago. We can't possibly feed them all without the hybrid seed, chemical fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, industrial-sized farms, and other technology that Pollan disparages. Technology dependency is the real `omnivore's dilemma'.

Pollan's insistence on federal control of agriculture betrays totalitarianism. He leads us to think grain farmers need a `nanny state' government to tell them how to farm. Why? Government subsidies are a cause of the corn surplus, not a solution to the problem. Why should grain farming be regulated more than other industries? Does the government tell fruit growers how many apples to produce? No. Does it tell manufacturers how many cars or shoes to produce? No. Does the government set prices for any of those items? No. In those industries, the free market determines prices and encourages supply to meet demand. But Pollan, speaking through his Iowa farmer-puppet, has no faith in the free market. Apparently, he wants the government to determine what crops and how much of each farmers grow, and how much they are paid: in essence, central planning. Perhaps he should visit North Korea and see what people there are having for lunch.

The only time the author entertains the idea of less government regulation of food production is when he quotes the organic farmer in Virginia, who resents government inspection of his poultry slaughtering operation. Since meat inspection is one area of the food industry where people of all political stripes see the need for government oversight, quoting this man does not support the idea of the `free market' farmer.

Throughout, Pollan insists `smaller is better' in terms of farms and other businesses but never fully explains why this should be so. He visits an organic produce farm in California and, although his description of its quality control and efficiency impressed me, he disparages the operation for being too large and factory-like, and for using nonunion labor. He quotes a big organic farmer "that unless organic `scales up (it will) never be anything more than yuppie food" but dismisses large organic as just another form of factory farming. He expresses admiration for the smaller, less mechanized but heavily subsidized farms of Europe. Does he not realize that the EU can afford its farm subsidies only because it imports cheap US-subidized grain to feed its livestock and enjoys US subsidy of its defense through NATO?

Another misleading part of the book discusses confinement lifestock farming. Pollan claims that raising cattle, hogs, or chickens inside a building is cruel. Does he not realize that the alternative is for them to be outdoors in the cold, wind, rain, and hot sun? How is it `cruel' for animals to live in a heated and cooled, relatively clean concrete building?

Pollan is a meat-eater; vegetarian alternatives get short treatment here, although the author does admit that if no one ate meat, a lot of the problems he describes would not be problems. He expresses concern about the quality of life and death of livestock and game animals. The mainstream position on animals as food is: God created animals to serve man. Man should treat them humanely, kill them with as little suffering as possible, and before enjoying their meat, give thanks for the bounty God has provided. Pretty much any Christian, Jew, Moslem, or Buddhist and some Hindus would accept this view or a slight variation. But not Pollan. He devotes many words to the morality of meat eating, describing in nauseating detail a visit to a slaughterhouse, and discussing at length his feelings about killing a chicken and (in the chapter on hunting) a wild boar. He references not only PETA but the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset on the question, `Can animals experience happiness?' Pollan tries to sound high-minded but comes off as squeamishly metrosexual and self-absorbed to the point of narcissism: he's not writing about livestock so much as about his feelings. At the banquet that culminates his research, he can't bring himself to say grace because he's "afraid it would come off sounding corny and might ruin some appetites." Should you buy ideas from this man?

Given the weakness of Pollan's arguments, you wouldn't think his book would change minds about food policy, but apparently, it does. I read it for a book club at a public library. A dozen or so white Anglo urbanites showed up. Most said they were "disturbed" by the feedlot and slaughter descriptions but agreed Pollan is a "great" writer. No one but me was bothered by the paucity of facts to support the anecdotes, or the socialistic rhetoric. In an hour's discussion, talk started out on a positive note about where to get organic food, but then, under the spell of Pollan's rhetoric, wandered into topics like food contamination, malnutrition, water pollution, corporate greed and the dangers of globalization. Comments grew increasingly political and dark, until one woman, a nurse, said, `The world has too many people'. Another reader said, echoing the author's sentiments, "Farmers just want to make a profit...Capitalism ruins everything." Heads nodded. There were murmurs of agreement. I got up and left.

One of the good parts of the book discusses composting. I have a compost pile. It will make a good home for this book.

The Omnivore's Dilemma should be required reading for every single American, period. American culture, especially, has developed an assembly line, industrial, one-size-fits-all approach that serves corporate culture and the bottom line. The result has been catastrophic for Americans at the dinner table. If this sounds extreme, then you haven't read the book. Since reading the book, and being the principal cook in my family, I will not serve feedlot beef, period, since it always comes from livestock that are, to some extent, sick. That's why feedlot steers are given antibiotics that pasture fed steers don't require.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is in no way a dry, technical or statistics-based book. It is written in a light, entertaining and witty style while presenting a detailed narrative of the various experiences of the author. He prepares for a series of meals, the first of which is at McDonald's, following a thorough investigation of the progress of a young calf, which he purchased, from the pasture to the feedlot and finally to becoming the contents of a golden arches burger. Then he goes in pursuit of truly awesome nutrition, taking the reader to Polyface Farm where "the animals do all the work" (well, almost), and consumers drive considerable distances to purchase the beef, chickens, swine, turkeys and eggs from the farm. Once you have explored the Polyface Farm philosophy, you may find yourself asking, repeatedly, "Why aren't all Americans demanding that we raise food in this way?"

The Omnivore's Dilemma is simply essential. If you haven't read it, you are way, way out of the loop.

The subject of the book is an analysis on what we eat and, to a certain extent, why. But what distinguishes this book from many others on the subject is the live-in experience that the reader has accompanying the author through his hand-on experiences. The other excellent part of the author's approach is the scientific information that accompanies this travel (history, laws, nutrition, interviews with industry people, agricultures (organic and not), veterinarians, etc.) allowing the reader to arrive to his own conclusions, which makes it very powerful (nothing is given as dogma). I have kept wondering how long did it take to the author to write it, this is not library feat. The result of this novel approach is, besides the knowledge of the eating process in our modern society, a permanent new way to consider not only the content of what we eat, but also the way we shop for food and why. If before we weren't aware of it, after reading this book we will not be able to forget that, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, our daily eating routine is part of a political act.

This book dives deeper into American agriculture than any book before it. Without sounding condescending Pollan brilliantly reveals the complexity of the food industry in the modern era. A must read book for anyone who eats food.

Everyone in this country should consider it required reading.
It's not a novel, so it may seem a bit tedious at times, but you will be provoked to comment or at least grunt at the number of facts you hadn't heard previously. I've already talked several others into buying it, and
their responses were unanimously similar. Gee - I never knew that, or
that's simply disgusting. Makes for many interesting lunch conversations.

wonderful writing, not only is it a bevy of information, which is all supported, it's so well written that you are compelled to continue investigating with him on his journey. i have notes in all of my margins and a ton of dog eared and tabbed pages. i'm on to his next book, then will go to past works. defiantly one i've referred many people to.

This book had a lot of potential, but the narrative was uninteresting.

Pollan is obviously passionate about food and its ramifications for society. However, this book reads like a textbook. It is overly dry and focused on facts.

I couldn't get into it, even after giving it a second try.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is this: what to eat and what not to eat. Sounds easy, but as Michael Pollan shows this dilemma is at the heart of what both divides and joins people at the most visceral level. The dilemma is sharp because the question of what to eat and what not to eat is moral as well as nutritional. It is practical as well as esthetic. It is a question that engages all people in all cultures. It pits traditional values against modernity. There is the family that eats together a meal prepared by a family member or members, and the meal that is eaten on the run prepared by agribusiness and heated in a microwave. There is fast food and the Slow Food movement. There is the question of whether to eat meat or not, and if not, whether to be a vegetarian or a vegan or something in-between. And if we do eat meat, should a distinction be made between free range flesh and the factory kind? Should the suffering of animals spoil our appetite? We are omnivores, but in a world of so many of us, can we really continue to eat so high on the hog?

Pollan addresses these questions and many others in a courageous and uncompromising way that should gain the respect of all readers, whether they agree with his conclusions or not.

The book is in three parts, with four characteristic meals.

Pollan begins with "Industrial Corn" (Part I) and a fast food meal from McDonald's in the car. This part of the book, which could be an entire book itself--and a very good one--tells the story of corn and how it has come to dominate the American food industry. Eating at McDonald's is appropriate since their menu is dominated by products made from corn including the beef in the burgers which comes from cows fattened on corn, the corn sugar in the sodas and shakes, and the corn oil in the sauces. Eating while driving at 65 MPH is also apt since the car is running partially on ethanol made from corn.
Part II, "Pastoral Grass" is about range cattle and how ruminants turn the grass that we cannot digest into flesh that we can. It is also about the wholesale slaughter of animals in deplorable and disgusting conditions, and how these practices have redirected many people to food from sustainable and humane farming practices. Pollan gets his hands dirty and bloodied as he spends a week on a farm in Virginia harvesting and slaughtering chickens and learning how "grass farmers" work. There are two meals in this part of the book, one an organic industrial meal (from Whole Foods) and the other a grass-fed meal from Joel Salatin's Virginia farm.

In Part III Pollan shots a pig, forages for mushrooms and cooks a meal for ten from (mostly) products that he himself gathered, hunted or grew in his garden. He calls it his "perfect meal." He takes a turn at being a vegetarian and faces head-on the ethical dilemma of eating animals. He makes three strong arguments that allow him to go on eating meat. First, there is the argument of the flexitarian, that eating food is a social and cultural event that is shared with family and friends and serves as a basis for bridging cultural divides. Pollan writes, "What troubles me most about my vegetarianism is the subtle way it alienates me from other people and, odd as this might sound, from a whole dimension of human experience." He adds, "I'm inclined to agree with the French, who gaze upon any personal dietary prohibition as bad manners." (pp. 313-314)

Next there is the argument from evolutionary biology. "To think of domestication as a form of slavery or even exploitation is to misconstrue...[the relationship between domestic animals and humans; it is] to project a human idea of power onto what is in fact an example of mutualism or symbiosis between species." Pollan explains, "Domestication is an evolutionary, rather than a political, development. It is certainly not a regime humans somehow imposed on animals some ten thousand years ago. Rather, domestication took place when a handful of especially opportunistic species discovered, through Darwinian trial and error, that they were more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance with humans than on their own." A chicken raised on a farm where it is allowed to roam free and then come to a quick and humane end is probably better off than a chicken living in a jungle or forest where its life may be shorter and more difficult.

Finally, Pollan argues that while it is the individual in human society that is the basis of moral consideration, in nature it is the species itself. He asks, "Is the individual the crucial moral entity in nature as we've decided it should be in human society? We simply may require a different set of ethics to guide our dealings with the natural world...(where sentience counts for little)...." (p. 325)

Pollan also confronts the food industry head on. He writes that the industrial factory farm is a place "where the subtleties of moral philosophy and animal cognition mean less than nothing, indeed where everything we've learned about animals at least since Darwin has been simply...put aside. To visit a modern Confined Animal Feeding Operation...is to enter a world...[where animals] are treated as machines--"production units"--incapable of feeling pain." (p. 317)

On next page he adds, "The industrial animal factory offers a nightmarish glimpse of what capitalism is capable of in the absence of any moral or regulatory constraint whatsoever."

What Pollan confronts in this fully lived, deeply researched, and beautifully written tour de force is what is perhaps the deepest existential contradiction of life, namely that in order to live we must eat the bodies of other living things. Only fruits and nectars are given freely to us, and man cannot live on fruits and nectars alone.

I've yet to finish Michael Pollan's latest, but I fully intend to. I find it the type of book that requires some "time off" before getting back to finishing it. It's chock full of neat stuff, but sometimes the prose bogs down and so does this reader's brain. I have not picked it up for a week, but I want to get back to it soon....with that said, this book is a must for serious foodies...if just to have in your library for when the whim hits to pick it up and read a chapter or two...Michael Pollan is a wonderful scholar and writer...and heck! he knows Alice Waters!!

It's changed the way I buy and eat food... for the better. Very enlightening... a fascinating book that told me a lot about something I thought I knew a lot about... until I read this book.

This book raises extremely interesting facts about the food that we eat in the USA. You will walk away concerned about what you eat as well as the collapse of the US farming community, and wonder what you can do to improve the dire straits we are in.

Some of the sections were utterly fascinating, such as his tracing of food products through the industrial food complex.

Other sections became too long and preachy. Descriptive, but sometimes more of a diary than a narrative, leaving less to be learned.

It would be quite interesting to have a comparison of the situation in the US with the international community. Is this same disaster occurring in and exported to other parts of the world?

Spring approaches. It's azaleas in Atlanta, cherry blossoms in Washington, and further a field, in Kyoto. On the high plains it is wind. Mr. Pollen did not write a travel book, but because of him I'll be off to visit Garden City, Kansas, inspired by such lines as: "Yet I'm sure that after enough time goes by, and the stink of this place is gone from my nostrils, I will eat feedlot beef again. Eating industrial meat takes an almost heroic act of not knowing or, now, forgetting." He followed the cow that he purchased in South Dakota to Garden City, saw the feedlot where the cows are pumped full of antibiotics, and was overwhelmed by the smell of the products destined for so many stomachs.

This is a rich book, on several dimensions. Just to read it for the sheer knowledge it imparts - how corn accidentally came to dominate our diets, and our lives. How the diet of cows was transformed from grass to corn. He takes a hard look at the politics behind such a transformation, identify Earl Butz, Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture, as being the key individual in bringing us the era of cheap corn. He looks at that will-o-wisp called "costs", and shows how government policies provided tremendous subsidies so that corn would become a "welfare queen."

The book's structure is centered on four different kinds of meals: industrial, big organic, local organic, and the one that was hunted / collected by the eater. One is allowed to ponder how all this time and energy which is tied to the industrial meal makes our food so much worse. Mr. Pollen takes us inside General Mills in Minneapolis, where amid much secrecy very highly-paid individuals are paid to devise food products so that Americans will eat even more, because "Wall Street" demands greater growth than the increase in food consumption which would occur through normal population growth. He takes us to "industrial organic" in California, and truly explains how "organic" is so often "not very." He is never permitted inside a real slaughter house - the companies get away with this prohibition by claiming a need for "food security." He recommends glass abattoirs to improve the process, as was approximated at the local organic farm in the Shenandoah Valley. And with considerably resourcefulness and willingness to venture into new fields, he hunts his own food for one meal.

He is wonderfully erudite, and surprises with such gems as: "For Isaac, the nugget is a distinct taste of childhood, quite apart from chicken, and no doubt a future vehicle of nostalgia - a madeleine in the making." He has brought together numerous disciplines to produce this book - truly one of the essential reads of the year, and one that will quite possibly modify your life. He modified mine; now I will experience spring in Garden City, to overcome the "not knowing." See you there!

This book will change the way you walk through the grocery store and pick your food. It invites you to raise your awareness about the process that produces the foods that we eat. It nearly makes it impossible for one to not wonder exactly what they're eating.

This is an excellent book about how the industrialization of food production and distribution ultimately affects us, human beings.

Pollan's approach is to take us from our evolution as hunter/gatherers to where we are today, humans living in cities who are completely removed from the food production process. In order to achieve scaleability in food production, we have had to make sacrifices in our food, most of which we do not even know we have made. This book sheds some light on some of those choices which have been made for us when we choose to outsource food production and distribution to unknown global business conglomerates which we most likely have not heard about, but are nevertheless the main drivers of globalization and US agricultural trade policy.

This book is a real eye-opener, and shows the consequences when we get too far removed from our original agricultural roots.

The author wrote about and gave voice to something that's been nagging at a lot of us for awhile now - what to eat.
Well-written, fun to read, and interesting look at real food.

The first sectio of the book was by far the best part but the rest of the book was enjoyable as well. I have sworn off of "processed beef" and have taken a good look at my HFCS based diet that this country forces upon us. This is a truly eye opening book and really makes it clear how corporations care more about turning a buck than turning out a healthy product. If not for the organic farmers we would be a doomed society.
I am still eating meat but I am much more aware of what I am puttig into my body and have noticed a GREAT difference since I began.
Do yourself a favor and read at LEAST the first 1/3 of this book. It will disgust you into action.