I tackled the book with an "It's another school assignment" mindset. I finished the book satisfied and savvy. After the few chapters I was readying myself for a couple of hours of reading. It may not be a page-turning thriller, but the humorous tone and interesting tidbits kept me reading.

Pollan turns scientific explanations about foods into understandable, plain English explanations about foods. It's easy to comprehend what he's talking about so I don't have to spare an extra brain trying to decode words like dimethylpolysiloxene and glyceride because Pollan follows up with simple, relatable definitions.

Throughout the book he supplies a bountiful amount of quotes from all sorts of people he encountered throughout his journey to trace raw food to our dinner table. He cites many other works and also occasionally pulls a sentence or two from them. He offers a variety of examples and some anecdotes to help support an ethical, healthy, and tasty meal.

A nice thing about his voice is it's not robotic. His writing sounds human, it sounds like a friend even. The casual tone and 2nd person perspective makes the daunting subject of discussing food science seem easier. Yet when information needs to get across he'll say it bluntly. Switching between straightforward, outright explanations and playful, colorful comments keeps the writing interesting.

In the beginning he mostly focuses on the scientific and economic aspects about food. He starts off with the Zea Mays (corn). Instead of boring his audience with a plain description about how corn dominates the supermarket, he uses a variety of interesting wordplay (The Rise of the Zea Mays, Corn Sex, etc) and compares corn to being something like a dictator. This kept me continuing to read on, which I'm glad I did. After he guides the reader through a series of exposition, he enters narrative. He talks about his experience preparing a purely hunter-gather meal (cutting a few corners) and this lets the reader feel. Instead of raw explanation, we now get more emotional and story-like. I thought this was a good move on Pollan's part to help persuade readers to combat the Omnivore's Dilemma and become healthier.

All in all, I enjoy Pollan's style very much. The humor gives good breaks between hefty paragraphs of dry exposition and the entertaining stories he brings helps the reader picture the scenes so that it isn't all dry, groundless science. Never for me has learning about eating healthy been so amusing. Definitely a good read, although slightly chunky and hard to digest at some points.

I tackled the book with an "It's another school assignment" mindset. I finished the book satisfied and savvy. After the few chapters I was readying myself for a couple of hours of reading. It may not be a page-turning thriller, but the humorous tone and interesting tidbits kept me reading.

Pollan turns scientific explanations about foods into understandable, plain English explanations about foods. It's easy to comprehend what he's talking about so I don't have to spare an extra brain trying to decode words like dimethylpolysiloxene and glyceride because Pollan follows up with simple, relatable definitions.

Throughout the book he supplies a bountiful amount of quotes from all sorts of people he encountered throughout his journey to trace raw food to our dinner table. He cites many other works and also occasionally pulls a sentence or two from them. He offers a variety of examples and some anecdotes to help support an ethical, healthy, and tasty meal.

All in all, I enjoy Pollan's style very much. The humor gives good breaks between hefty paragraphs of dry exposition and the entertaining stories he brings helps the reader picture the scenes so that it isn't all dry, groundless science. Never for me has learning about eating healthy been so amusing. Definitely a good read, although slightly chunky and hard to digest at some points.

For me, there is no greater praise for a book. I'm 3/4 through the book now, and already, it has challenged my views on food, farming, markets, and the US. And I kinda want to be a "grass farmer."

It took me a long time to get through this book, but it was so worth it. Thank you, Michael Pollan, for opening my eyes!

One of the best books I've read in recent years. Author Pollan swings big, and delivers. An indictment of us, basically, as Pollan covers the entire food industry and the American public's participation in a massive scam designed to support big business.

This terrific read will make you question every bit of food you ever consume.

Highly recommended for all readers. A good book for high school students interested in discovering how the world works, as well.

Food books tend to fall in one of two categories: (1) preachy, "I'm better than you" books, which guilt you into eating vegetarian, vegan, organic, or what have you; and (2) gross-out books, exposes of the fast food industry that will leave you queasy after every page. I was looking for a food book that broke out of these predictable molds, and found it in The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Pollan makes clear very on he's not trying to preach or make value judgments. Indeed, he is a meat-eater himself and is very mindful of the limitations of both vegetarianism and the practical difficulties of eating organic (cost and the rise of industrial organic). He generally lives up to these ideals, slipping only a few times when he's heaping praise on the Polyface Chicken Farm (with his conclusory assertions that their chicken "tastes like chicken" when other chicken doesn't). But, this is but a blip on the radar of a fair, engrossing look into where our food comes from, how it's made, and how it gets into our bodies.

I have no problem with the other food genres I speak of above; it's just that I wasn't looking for that kind of read here. Pollan is a fair, practical foodie who also happens to write very well, making this a very enjoyable read. I recommend it.

An essential book to inform and humanize us about our place in the food chain and the choices we have in the marketplace (perhaps the best way to vote). Pollard weaves a strand of his own story, affectionate and self-effacing, as he single-handedly bushwhacks the ways of our eating from paleolithic to post genetically modified. Tremendously researched passion and morality into a single meal (I mean book).

In short: I *really* enjoyed reading this book.

I really think that anyone who eats should read this. We all need to have a better understanding of HOW we got here.

I was shocked, horrified, and disgusted during certain parts....particularly the chapters covering feedlots, and "industrial organics".

As a person who takes the Bible literally, I had a hard time with his constant usage of evolution, but by simply replacing the phrase "evolved" or "evolve" with "God made", or "God inspired" does not change his meaning in the least. Also, as a person who takes the Bible literally, I am not so much concerned as an environmentalist (though I do believe that because God gave us this Earth, that we should take the best care of it that we can! But I believe He is going to come back to restore the Earth.) but I am very concerned about what I put into my Children's bodies. I have made the mistake of eating "industrial organics" for far too long, and I will be making some changes.

Morally, I do take issues with feedlots. I always have, and that's why we buy a cow from a local farmer for our meat supply. After reading this book I am just outraged. Not only are they abusing these animals (if you thought Mike Vick was bad.....) but they are purposely making them sick all for the sake of getting the cows large enough to slaughter them between 12-18 months of age....and the meat may be cheap at your local Walmart, or grocery store, but at what price??!?! It's morally and nutritionally wrong.

I really think that all parents, and anyone concerned about what they eat, should read this. It's a tough read, and there were parts that I had a hard time keeping my eyes open....but it's enlightening.

After seeing Food, Inc. I got this book and the combination of those two have changed my life. It's surpising the facade that our food system is hidden behind! I now shop at my local farmers market for all my animal products (milk, meat and eggs) and seasonal veggies and fruit. I wish I could send a copy of this book to everyone I know. It is very detailed, not a short - or easy - read. But highly worth the time.

Michael Pollan's widely-read and critically-lauded volume is, I trust, the last word on enduring a good scold over a long-considered subject. Pollan -- or, more likely, his publisher -- probably didn't want to call this work something like "how to eat ethically" (with perhaps a now *de rigueur* sentence-long subtitle like "why eating corn-based foods is killing you, your soul, the planet, and possibly most of the known universe as we know it"). Far better to soft-focus it as a "dilemma", with the lovely subtitle about "a natural history of ... meals" and some gastronomically pleasing cover photography than resort to all that shrillness. Plenty of room for that inside.

Our first clue comes when Pollan actually defines his title: (spoiler alert!) the "dilemma" is simply "what should I have for dinner?" It's that "should" that gives away the game: we're immediately plunged into the ethical realm of things you *should* and *should not* be consuming. Most of the book inevitably concentrates on the latter and if the thought of someone (even a writer as erudite and witty as Pollan) ripping your food choices sounds appealing, then by all means tuck right in.

Just know that this isn't about resolving a dilemma or providing a "natural history" of four meals (whatever that means); it means a full-blast dietary critique of good and nasty foods (or entire foodstuffs) filtered through the author's value system, through which any moral evaluation must necessarily pass. That the author is a sustainability-loving, environmental loca-vore (eng) of the free-market-loathing, capitalist-despising school tells you about all you need to know about his values. His ethical eating vision veritably bleeds through this prism often enough that the rest is just 400+ pages of very good and occasionally brilliant descriptive filler. Keeping it to "industrial corn is killing everything, eating animals and plants raised on grass is the best -- indeed, the *only* -- way to go, Whole Foods is a fraud, and killing and gathering your own food really makes you think" would make for a very short book.

But of course those four points require some fleshing out and here Pollan really shines. The author not only plunges headlong into just about every gastronomical detail imaginable -- from world commodity markets to chicken digestive tracts -- but to his credit he takes a true reporter's angle of *living* what he writes: not content with merely interviewing farmers and hunters, he *becomes* one (well, for a week at a time) to see how animals are really raised, slaughtered and dressed. Even if I took issue with many of Pollan's values, I found this writing stylistically brilliant and often riveting. He clearly has superb journalistic instincts (coupled with an amusing dash of self-deprecation) and loves his subject to boot.

So all this would be perfectly delightful if the aforementioned moral harangues didn't lurk beneath almost every paragraph. I make no judgments here about Pollan's values; I'll only note that when he obviously intends for this discourse on food to indict his perceived evils *on their own* he falls painfully short. Capitalism may be a despicable way to run an economy, but not because "we can only eat so much" (compared, presumably, to our unlimited capacity for dishwashers and Cadillacs) or due to corn farmers actually *growing more* when their prices fall. (That the latter is, of course, due to long-standing government subsidies Pollan grudgingly acknowledges -- but then curiously defines the whole mess as "capitalism" anyway.) He gamely attempts to label the entire food business "special" and exempt from a market economy but his rather obvious biases get in the way.

On balance I found "Dilemma" beautifully readable, often provocative but ultimately rather frustrating. Pollan's journalistic skills and research into the food business are superlative; I have whole shelves of gastronomy books that aren't even in his league. But I found his soft-peddled moralizing ultimately unsupported and often weirdly inappropriate. Read his book for the sumptuous detail and skip the bitter side dishes.

If this book doesn't change the way you think about what you're eating, nothing will. At a time when most of us have become completely removed from the source of our dinner, Michael Pollan takes us there. He schleps from factory farms to processing plants, giving us a close look (a little too close, sometimes) at what goes into making our food.

Along the way, he discusses in detail how dramatically we've retooled nature to our own ends at every step of the food production process, and the consequences--to the environment, to the animals, and to our own health.

His philosophical gleanings on our relationship with food have given me plenty of ... well, food for thought!

a very well written book on the american diet. i havent been able to eat corn (or corn products) without thinking about the first section since.

Perhaps one the most thought-provoking reads in decades... you'll find it virtually impossible to think of food the same way again. Michael Pollan has written a gem. The Omnivore's Dilemma takes us on a fascinating journey of discovery that visits every link in the modern American food chain and opens our eyes wide to the wonder of what it truly means to be an `omnivore' in today's over-processed and shrink-wrapped jungle. He places the essential act of eating in the moving context of a relationship - between you the eater and those responsible for the production and preparation of that which you eat. And that relationship extends to the very plants and animals that constitute the basis of the human food chain. Written in a witty and engaging style, Pollan teaches us an important lesson on the very essence of humanity and underscores the challenge we face as slowly evolving biological creatures immersed in a rapidly advancing industrialized civilization.

An amazing book that makes one conscious of everything that is put into our mouths and where it comes from. And, the long term effects of choices that we are making as a nation with regards to food that need to shift. We need new models of how to live. Which links to a book I recently finished called: Sustainability: A personal journey to a built sustainable community ... and an amazing picture of what life will soon be like by Stuart W. Rose, Ph.D. really helped me to learn to think about all the aspects of sustainability (shelter, community,land use)including food. Both authors bring us to a place of change for each of us individually have the ability to affect change and what our choices mean for ourselves and our planet.

I was expecting a diatribe, a full-force blast against agri-business and the factory farm, more along the lines of what we hear from the more strident vegans and animal rights activists. Pollan, however, is much too skilled as a journalist and writer for that. If his journeys lead him to both Food Hell and Food Heaven, they also show him that there is no clear, simple, and easy path to salvation when it comes to eating.

"The Omnivore's Dilemma" is Pollan's attempt to answer some important questions about the food we eat, which I have unfairly boiled down to: Where does our food come from, and how did it get from there to us? His quest takes him through the horrifying house of cards that is industrial farming, ranching, and food processing, a vision that will either open your eyes or make you screw them tightly shut, because most of us don't have a lot of choice when it comes, for example, to eschewing the monoculture corn that finds its way into most of what we eat and much of what we don't. The first of the four meals in the subtitle is of McDonald's fast food, eaten with his family but hardly "shared," as they each consumed a different choice of foods, all the while driving along the highway, as many fast food meals are eaten in America today.

Skipping ahead, the fourth and final meal was as personal and local as Pollan could make it: meat from the wild pig he shot himself, bread made with wild yeasts, produce from his garden, mushrooms gathered by his own hands, and more, all crafted into a gourmet feast that he shared at the table with friends, family, and good conversation. With apparently honest and transparent struggles, he experiences both the attraction of vegetarianism and the joy of the hunt in preparation for what he called his Perfect Meal. Not a meal for everyone, nor for every day, but a meal of grace, embodying the ultimate answer to his questions.

In between is Organic, what Pollan calls pastoral food, in contrast to industrial. This required two meals, because "organic" isn't what it used to be. Big Organic, symbolized by the Whole Foods Market, is the organic movement gone mainstream. It is proof that we do, after all, have some choice about where our food comes from. That we can now buy organic food at Wal-Mart says a lot for the power of the consumer. But this victory came at a price: our 1960's-bred image of the small, family, organic farm remains only on the patently misleading pictures on the food packages. In order to become a mass-market commodity, organic food has taken on many of the harmful practices of the industrial system, from migrant labor to "free range" chickens that never see the outdoors. It's still a good thing -- organic farming is much better for the land and produces food that is at least somewhat more nutritious -- but has it lost its soul?

Joel Salatin would say it has. The section on Salatin's Polyface Farm in Virginia is worth the price of the book all by itself. This is Food Heaven on earth. The Salatin family, beginning with Joel's parents, took an abused and exhausted plot of land and healed it ("we are in the redemption business"), turning it into a showpiece of truly sustainable agriculture, one that produces a great deal of food while enriching, rather than depleting the land, and where the people, the animals, the plants, the smaller creatures, and the soil play out their interdependence to the advantage of all.

Hope for the future of food lies not in one particular system, Pollan says, but in supporting a variety of approaches. "As in the fields, nature provides the best model for the marketplaces, and nature never puts all her eggs in one basket. The great virtue of a diversified food economy, like a diverse pasture or farm, is its ability to withstand any shock. The important thing is that there be multiple food chains, so that when any one of them fails -- when the oil runs out, when mad cow or other food-borne diseases become epidemic, when the pesticides no longer work, when drought strikes and plagues come and soils blow away -- we'll still have a way to feed ourselves."

Far from being the jeremiad I had expected, Pollan's careful investigations and respectful reporting make "The Omnivore's Dilemma" a book that everyone who eats should read.

Michael Pollan entertains while he informs, surprises, and disillusions most hopes you might have had about the American food industry. This book is a must read if you are at all interested in what you eat, and how its production is affecting nature. Pollan follows the life of both a cow and a chicken through their confined lives in high producing typical american farms- which proves to be more revolting and dangerous that one might have thought. He also explains why all those products at the grocery store have some tangent of corn in it: "high fructose corn syrup" etc. He also documents some small organic farmers and the processes they use to create sustainable farming. How the food industry reflects the general American mentality should become increasingly obvious, as you become more aware of what you eat and where it comes from.

This book is an excellent way to make a visit to the grocery store a little less abstract.

Michael Pollan mesmerizes with his exciting examination of the possible sources of our food in America. I love food and for me this book constituted a celebration of it's complexity and possibility. Although Pollan is obviously biased he takes a calculated look at the propositions of both sides, even though through the novel we follow him to his inevitable arrival at his own perceptions. I highly recommend this book to all readers, especially those who are politically conscious or who just get inordinately excited about food the way I do.

A great book that reads well and talks about how agriculture buisness ultimately affects our health. Recommended.

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan explores the current landscape of procuring food in America by actively tracing four meals, through intermediary energy forms, to the ultimate source of their energy, the sun. He explicates all processes and their consequences with regards to creating meals from McDonald's, Whole Foods (big industrial organic), a self-sustained farm, and one that he obtained every component of himself (hunting and gathering).

His active investigative journalism as well as his open mind and willingness to learn leads him to experience firsthand the food creation process by participating in all methods of creating food (that is, those that he is allowed to participate in) and to read everything on the subject from the biology of corn reproduction to the philosophy of eating animals, allowing him to understand food as well as possible. His travels lead him to farms across the country, where he watches the farm processes and participates in them (including driving a tractor as well as killing and eviscerating chickens), CAFO's, and to learn how to hunt wild pig and develop a sixth sense for seeing and gathering mushrooms. He engages in deep discussions with experts in all aspects of food to understand their perspective and shed a different light on food as we see it - that is, food without the hidden negative consequences. This active participation and discussion straight from the source as well as thorough research leads him to draw well-reasoned conclusions from his experiences. He demystifies the supermarket and articulates the hidden consequences of our food choices.

Pollan conveys his findings and opinions fluidly and his experiences candidly. He imparts the reader with a greater wisdom and confidence in making food choices (although it is disenchanting that the system in place does not necessarily even allow you to make the choices you want to...), but he is not preachy. I found Pollan's writing to be clear, interesting, and sincere. I highly recommend this book.

I worried when I got this book that it would be a typical, New York Times, liberal manifesto. To a degree, it is that. But it goes beyond that. Pollan takes a hard look at our food supply, how we grow it, how we get it to the consumer. It's utterly persuasive. One can't read this book and finish anything but deeply troubled.

It's good to know there are others out there who don't object so much to killing animals for food (I don't) but who are rightfully sickened by how they are raised and treated before slaughter. This book really spoke to me, not because I'm a closet vegan looking to condemn meat eaters everywhere (I'm not). Indeed, that hardly seems Pollan's goal. Rather, he points out that one can eat animals but raise them responsibly, kill animals but treat them with dignity.

Ultimately, his point is that the $1 cheeseburger at McDonalds is not really $1. The hidden costs affect the taxpayer much more than the ridiculous prices would otherwise suggest.

I'm no hippie, left-wing New Yorker looking to tear up corporate America. I love corporate America. But as a taxpayer, I finished this book truly angry at how our government subsidizes obesity, encourages cancer, and ignores cruelty. As a human being, I finished this book deeply troubled at how millions of animals live their entire lives in abject misery for months so that I can get a Big Mac cheap.

As far as I'm concerned, this book should be mandatory reading - I can only hope it heralds an awakening.

I already know a lot about food, nutrition, and agriculture so this book didn't really add anything.

Like other reviewers, I've been pondering diet and food since I read "Fast Food Nation" and saw "Super Size Me".

Much has been written about this book, so I'll be brief.

PRAISE

I found Michael Pollan's book to be a fascinating account of modern eating. As I listened to the audio version, I also enjoyed the narrator.

I initially thought that the book was ordered backwards (holding hunting/gathering toward the end of the book rather than starting with it), but the process makes far more sense the way the author/editor structured the book.

I appreciated the author's refusal to fall for the doctrine of specific etiology. I appreciated Mr. Pollan's willingness to 'hold the questions,' and not fall prey to the most recent cutting-edge single solution that science is offering us.

I've never hunted in my life, so I found the account of his hunting trip fascinating. I fly-fish, so I appreciated Pollan's discussion of the inside/outside perspectives of the hunter. Those thoughts fit well with my experience in fly-fishing.

CRITICISMS

The only down sized to the book is the author's somewhat annoying habit of using exceptionally complex words/phrases when simpler words/phrases could be used. (This coming from a writer who loves words ...).

I also found the author to be a rather Western-centric. Buddhisms and other Eastern perspectives have been discussing the merits of vegetarianism for far longer than we in the West have. (Early in the book, Pollan makes it sounds like vegetarianism is a recent development). Also, it was no surprise to me when Pollan reported that he could find mushrooms more easily when his teacher was present. That one often performs better in the presence of a teacher is a truism in the martial arts world (and, as I understand it, the Yoga world as well).


BOTTOM LINE

For me, the praise outshines the criticisms.

I highly recommend this book.

Pollan writes on many things that some of us know and many things that many do not know about our industrial vs family farm food system. Although I have for many, many years spoken to individuals and groups on this subject, I found several new things to ponder. He gives us good reasons to look more deeply into the choices we make about the foods we eat daily, weekly and monthly. If you have strong convictions on the types of foods you will and will not eat, or about being vegetarian-vs-not, it is helpful and eye-opening to read what Pollan writes about food production. The way in which corn affects our daily lives, our political system, our national economy, and the livelihoods of the people who produce our food will likely surprise you if you've not already heard. The book on the one hand can be considered a masterpiece for the amount of information that it provides and also something that'll make your head spin from the great amount of information garnered from a mere 2 pages of the writing. It is well written, yet dense.

I recommend it for anyone wishing to know more about food production in the USA and for those that want to make conscious choices about the foods they eat for either personal or political reasons. This book is a great way to get started...more and more books on this subject will definitely follow.

This book has not only inspired me to think more carefully about the food I eat, but also to think more critically about the other issues which I see and read about. Whether or not you agree with the message, there is no denying that Pollan did his research -- a lesson that many other writers, journalists, politicians, and everyone else would probably benefit from.

This book was fantastic. It is thick and I thought it might be boring, but I was totally wrong. It wasn't the kind that gripped you so you couldn't put it down... you could read a chapter or two and put it down for a time while you 'digested' the contents, pardon the pun. But inevitably, you are drawn back to it again and again. Great dinner conversation. I read it over 6 months ago and I am still talking about it. It has changed the way I shop for food!

This book was great for the first 300 pages. It was really interesting to learn about how corn is grown and how meat and processed foods are produced in the industrial food industry, and about how organic food isn't much better a lot of the time. Basically what I took away from this is that more people should be vegetarian, and eating less processed food. It takes lots of petroleum products to produce the corn and lots of corn to feed the cows, and all those petroleum products are polluting the environment, as is the cow manure. He shows a really cool farm where the cows are grass fed and the chickens eat the grups in the cows poop and then the chicken poop enriches the grass for the cows to eat. Sounds great - people eating that meat are fine. But he points out that this solution is not feasible for most of America. Then he spends a few weeks being vegetarian and doesn't like it, so he spends 50 pages or so justifying eating meat. One argument is that keeping family and religious traditions is important, but he is Jewish and eats pork and shellfish. So for him tradition is a valid reason not to be vegetarian, but not a reason to avoid foods he likes. Self-serving? Then he says animal rights people are naive because some island got overrun with pigs when the pig farmers brought them over, which attracted eagles that are eating the local foxes, and so they are shooting the pigs, but the animal rights people don't want the pigs to be shot. Stupid animal rights people, stopping the necessary solution. But he doesn't recognize that the original problem was caused by pig farmers. Then he says being vegetarian isn't feasible because it's not sustainable because there are areas like the northeast US that can't grow enough vegetation to support itself, so food would have to be transported in. But the northeast US can't grow enough meat either to support itself, as he acknowledged in an earlier chapter. The most sustainable diet for the planet would be vegetarianism with dairy and eggs - then cows can convert the grass into milk but you wouldn't need to constantly be growing and killing new cows. But he doesn't acknowledge this. And why is he so against transporting food? He points out how screwed up the American food industry is. Why shouldn't people import grass-fed beef from Argentina if they want to eat beef? He is fine with people driving hours every week to buy a chicken from his beloved grass farm - didn't that use up a lot of oil?

All in all, I recommend the first 300 pages of this book highly, but not the rest.

if you don't like good reporting, or in depth understanding this book will be a struggle for you, but if you love food, and more knowledge is better than less you are in for a TREAT!

The American public would do well to gain its information from experts in a particular field (in this case agriculture) rather than investigative journalists who are really experts at nothing, including journalism. Pollan struggles to report the facts through his book which in my expert opinion can only be taken seriously as a fictional resource and should be read for entertainment purposes only.

I have 35 years of actual experience in agriculture along with a degree and a great deal of additional professional training, reading, as well as traveling, touring, and networking with other agriculture professionals. I still learn new things every year that amaze me about our agriculture system. With hundreds of resource books at my disposal, tens of thousands of miles traveled to learn, tour, network, explore, and further educate myself, in addition to countless hours of real experience, research, and learning - it is feeble minded for anyone to believe that an investigative journalist could even begin to scratch the surface of today's global food system.

On the cover, the New York Times Book Review is quoted as saying "Thoughtful, engrossing . . . you're not likely to get a better explanation of exactly where food comes from." I would certainly beg to differ with this statement and would challenge readers to consider if the New York Times Book Review would know if they received a "better explanation of where food comes from?" The NYT is certainly not a place where I am going to get information about agriculture.

Why is "The Omnivore's Dilemma" endorsed only by sources known to have liberal agendas and none with any credible expertise in agriculture?

The USDA has recently reported that 36 million people are hungry in America. These people are not worried about whether or not the food they purchase is organic or locally grown or if the chickens are "free range" or the meat is "hormone free", etc. The bottom line is that we need all food systems in the United States to feed not only our country, but also to contribute to the world's food supply.

As long as there is a demand for locally grown and/or organic food there will be a producer who is willing to supply. For the producers and consumers of this type of food system, more power to you, I think it's great that you can do that. However to suggest that the entire agricultural system should return to a 1960's style of production would truly be devastating to our natural resources and would no doubt cause global famine.

I wish that Pollan would have chosen to interview a farmer who is more progressive in his adoption and use of modern farming practices - George Naylor ("industrial corn farmer") could probably be considered "progressive" when compared to 1980's standards. If Pollan would have chosen to abandon his agenda and spend time with a modern 21st century U.S. farmer he would have found a producer who is on the cutting edge of technology and actually doing a better job of both producing higher yields and caring for the environment than ever before in history.

World population is growing quickly and with population growth we lose land which can be used to produce food. How will we feed the world when the population increases to 10-12 billion? How will we feed all of their pets as well?? The only possible answer is that we have to get behind high yield agriculture in order to produce enough food - we truly need another green revolution.

I like the idea of local food and believe it to be great for local economy and it also seems to provide great opportunities for those who would like to farm small acreages. However, a definition of "local" is really necessary before any criticism of "industrial" agriculture is to take place. How far away is no longer considered local?? And what is "industrial agriculture"? As much as these terms are tossed around, it is only fair they have a concrete definition rather than just a generalization that is used to throw the rest of us under the bus.

While we're on the track of defining terms, some questions also need to be answered related to "local food".

What happens when we have a shortage of food production due to drought, disease, or other?

How do we obtain food items which we cannot or do not produce? I live in the Pacific Northwest in an area with a growing season of only 100 days. A recent study by agricultural experts from Washington State University suggests that local food actually ends up using more energy and not less as our investigative journalist Michael Pollan suggests.

What do we do with our surplus food production? For example: 70% of Montana is rangeland not suitable to cultivation. We have a comparative advantage over many places in the world for producing cattle and as a result there are approximately 3 cows for ever person in our state (a small number when compared to the 6 million bison which used to roam the range up here belching methane into the atmosphere) - there are only so many that can stay here to be used locally. We are also the 5th largest wheat producer in the country. Our dry climate here is actually very good for producing high quality wheat and we are the only place in the world which grows five of the six different wheat classes. A great deal of our wheat is and has to be shipped out of Montana.

What about comparative advantages? Shouldn't food be produced in the places of the world that are best suited to do so?

What about those fresh produce items which are not aesthetically or otherwise suitable to be sold as fresh produce but are great for a processed food product? Examples might be ketchup, soups, salad dressings, frozen concentrated orange juice, applesauce etc.

What about balance of trade for our country??

What about consumer choice?

What about consistency of food products? I really like the fact that Campbell's soup (and thousands of other products) is the same every time I open a can.

What about the changes in the American family and their eating habits?

We are all very fortunate to live in the United States of America where we pay the least of any country for our food at less than 10% of our disposable income after taxes. Not only is our food the cheapest, but it is also the safest and most plentiful and provided in the greatest variety compared to anywhere in the world. If you're going to cut down American agriculture, please keep in mind that you do have the option of living somewhere in the world other than the United States.

Please go to the experts in agriculture for information about agriculture. The following websites should be helpful to get you started:

American Farm Bureau Federation - be sure to order your copy of the Food and Farm Facts book. You'll be amazed at how poorly Michael Pollan did at reporting on modern agriculture through his book - Keep in mind though, he's only a journalist while the people compiling the facts booklet are experts in agriculture. www.fb.org and [...]

Feedstuffs Food Link Connecting Farm to Fork at [...]

Safe Food Inc. is a website put together by agricultural experts as a rebuttal to the movie Food Inc. [...]

This is a rich, detailed and compelling book. I enjoyed the way the author asked questions and the reader followed his process of finding answers. It would make an excellent discussion book. Lastly, my vocabulary is enriched. If you want to learn the word "holon" read on!

I love corn, but i had no idea that so much of what i eat - what i think of as non-corn, is at times 100% corn. The good thing about the book is that Pollan doesn't pull up a soapbox and preach as a converted zeolot. He readily admits to jonesing for a trip to McDonald's and veers away from the extremes on both ends of the spectrum. engaging style and while at times he gets a little heady, there is lots of balance with in the mud (literally) type experiences. of course, now i see corn everywhere! there are some very funny chapters where Pollan's ability to expose his own pretensions and hangups of liberal middle class upbringing come out and this to me is journalistic writing at its best. there is some very practical advice as well - esp toward the end when he discusses mushrooms - been there and feared them, but he offers up the 'why' and the 'how' to overcome phobia - get out and talk to people!

Pollan is able to put in a ton of important and often surprising information into his book, while making it very entertaining to read. I read it for a school assignment and couldn't put it down. He is journalist, not some stuffy scientist, so his approach to the topic of food is very entertaining and accessible to a layperson. A must-read for anyone who eats food they haven't grown themselves.

A really thoughtful, humane book about where our food comes from and what and how we should eat. Highly recommended.

Umm you can watch a movie that is on the web that covers all the info that's in this book. I understand that we need to eat more sustainable products, and that we should stay clear of GMO food products. this book was a waist of money, and the info enclosed in its covers is readily available on the web. Any foodie should already know the information that is in this book.
I'm a chef, and I guess this is a good read for a high school kid that's interested in the negative effects of humanity on the environment pertaining to food sources. I thought this book was more of a historical reference to the concepts behind the multiple course meal, I was wrong, hence forth the reason that I'm giving it 2 stars.

This is a great read, it has made me very thoughtful of what I eat and where my food comes from. The run down of how much corn or things that ate corn or used to be part of corn are in fast food was very mind opening. Drink all the soda you think you are going to want for a while before you read is my only advice.

When the author is explaining the food chain, he's well-informed, specific, and highly entertaining. Every now and then, he lapses into deeply silly philosophical mode, particularly when he's trying to grapple with the reality of killing animals for food (whether by hunting or in the slaughterhouse), something his pampered urban upbringing has made it nearly impossible for him to do. So I could have used an editor's services in cutting out about 90% of his repetitive agonizing over whether he can actually bring himself to eat a chicken he helped slaughter or a pig he shot in the woods. But, boy, when he finally gets out of that rut and goes back to describing the intricacies of the food chain, is he ever wonderful. The first section, about the prevalence of corn in the industrial food chain, is an eye-opener. Another section, about Joel Salatin's fascinating experiment in sustainable agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley, is worth the whole book. Even the hunting-and-gathering section, which suffers most from his tendency to maunder, is stuffed full of goodies about things like mushroom cycles of life.

I really enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about, well, corn--the economics, the health issues and the politics all involved in growing and selling corn. I thought this book was well researched and I think that Mr. Pollen did a great job of truly involving himself in the experience. I mean, he spent a week, busting his butt on the farm, living and working with a complete stranger who, although well meaning, is a bit out of the bell curve.

I have to agree with another review regarding the meat. I am a non-red meat eater but I do eat poultry, eggs, and dairy. I didn't think that he was as sensitive as he could have been to those that choose a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle.

I would highly recommend this book. I can't wait to read the Botany of Desire.

Although occasionally sections of this book got a little bogged down and dragged a bit for me, overall it was very fascinating, at times horrifying, and frequently wittily entertaining. Pollan explores three main styles or methods of producing a meal: modern industrialized farming, as currently practiced in America, sustainable agriculture based on pasturing livestock, etc., as practiced on Polyface Farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and hunter/gatherer food production. If a book based on that premise doesn't sound like it could hold your attention and be entertaining, think again.

The top two reviews have done an admirable job reviewing this book. I want to focus simply on the vegetarian section, indicating something I think he missed, and pointing out a couple things he writes that I think miss the mark.
The thing I think he missed in this section is that a major reason to be a vegetarian, aside from animal rights, the suffering they feel, whether or not they have a face--all of which is covered well in the section--is to be a pacifist. For me this was the major reason to become a vegetarian. I was convinced by another book about 15 years ago - "Diet for a New America". Robbins, the author of that book, chronicled a host of reasons to ge veg (environment, vegetarian athletes, health), but for me the strongest argument was to consider the way that eating animals could be viewed as a "gateway behavior" to accepting violence in other realms of life. I believe that acceptance of eating animals gives us all an edge such that, if there is a balance in question, where an argument could almost go either way--to punish or not, to kill or not, to invade or not--our daily diet will push us in the direction of bloodlust.
While I agree that being a vegetarian separates us from our relatives and even tradition itself, I think there are many things a thousand years from now that no one will be sorry are lost traditions, and that our current method of meat eating is one of those things (let's keep it open for discussion that there might be some form of test-tube meat that everyone will find acceptable in the future).
Further, I think Pollan misses the beat on a couple things in this section. First, the proposal that "Under the pressure of the hunt, anthropologists tell us, the human brain grew in size and complexity...." Well, that is one theory. And it surely has merit. But aren't there a number of other possibilities? Aren't there theories that we evolved more as scavengers than hunters, that our bigger brains had more to do with the mind-bending task of socializing in larger groups. I am no authority. I dabble in this. It seems to me that this point could have used more research and that Pollan was all too willing to accept hunting as the reason for big brains.
Second, Pollan then goes on to suggest that "much will be lost" by shedding our carnivorous habits. Isn't this a vagueness we can be spared. He is waxing nostalgic about our lost hunter ways, and not adding to his prior argument about lost traditions, either.
Third, he points out the irony that "animal rights...asks us to acknowledge all we share with animals, and then to act toward them in a most unanimalistic way." I hope the reader will agree with me that "we" do not "act" toward animals. Pollan labors extensively elsewhere in the book to show how removed we are from what we are eating. We "act" toward the animal that produced the steak on our plate about as much as we acted upon the broccoli plant that produced the side dish.
Fourth and finally, did he really need to mention sex? He asks us not to trivialize the desire to eat meat, likening it to the absurd result of trivializing sex on the basis that we can reproduce without it. This is too much. Yes, we can eat alternative veggie meats. Yes we can reproduce without the act of sex. Such reproduction is hugely expensive though. It's unreasonabe to argue that sex is only for reproduction. Maybe that was another reason to have a big brain, to help us in the long-term relationships we need to raise children beyond the days, weeks, months or rarely few years of our animal cousins. So I make his point on sex, but that doesn't argue for the comparison to the desire to eat animals. Sex is part of our social fabric, and not too likely to be replaced in the near future. But veggie meat alternatives are here, and it doesn't seem as if it would tear a society apart to divorce themselves from that bad habit. It hasn't hurt India.

I love this book. It changed the way I see my food and taught me about industrial farming. I think anyone who is interested in nutrition should read this.

Omnivore's Dilemma equips an eater who can eat just about everything with the knowledge to better pick and choose. To get us eaters from here to there, Omnivore's Dilemma takes what I found to be a unique approach: it focuses not so much on our food per se but instead focuses on the four production and distribution systems that create our food. Investigating the practices and effects of each system, Pollan, the author, writes mostly from first hand experience, which tends to place the reader in the midst of the corn field, feed lot, pasture, or other venue the author finds himself in. At times, because Pollan is writing from his first hand account, he tends to be sensationalistic. At others, he can wander in an academic ether, such as the chapter regarding the ethics of eating animals, that detracts from the book's message. Overall, though, the information Pollan conveys is so compelling you readily excuse these indulgences. Leaving you appreciating the book for telling you what is behind the labels on the food we buy as compared to what the marketing department is telling us.

I needed this book for my class which it is a required book for the class, I ordered it on the 22nd of Sept. and my other books not only came on time but early! I sent several emails to seller and no response. The book is sold out at my school's bookstore so this has cause me a extreme hardship! When I bought my book the sellers reviews were on ther higher end but in the last 30days there has been a huge drop, since the seller is having so many problems with keeping up on there end then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to sell anymore!

At first, I was excited by The Omnivore's Dilemma, although aware that it was sparse on numbers and analysis. That's journalism for you. The reporting is a quick and easy read that held my interest while bashing things I didn't like and holding out hope for a better food system that would still give us access to tastey meats and fresh veggies.

However, as I read through to the end of the book, my annoyance with Pollan--writing from the perspective of a rationalist and ecologist--over his off-hand but serious references to notions like "karmic debt" combined with his inconsistent prose left me thinking I should give the book no more than 3 stars. And after reading some of the other Amazon reviews, I feel the book deserves something more like 1 or 2 stars. While I accept that journalism is intellectually thin, I expect reported "facts" to be accurate. If you read through some of these reviews, however, you will find a multidude of relevant criticisms.

In Pollan's defense, many of the negative reviews are people who weren't interested in reading about Pollan's personal experiences, and these experiences were part of the point of the book. It is a personal account, and such an approach fits perfectly with Pollan's view of ethics and aesthetics. While all of his hand-wringing over hunting, for example, is laughable for those not confined by his class biases, everyone is confined by biases and Pollan's attempt to report his own experience is acceptable.

Other negative reviews criticize Pollan for lacking depth in addressing problems or not addressing questions that interested the reviewer, such as whether or not it would be easy for corn farmers to switch to something else. But this depth in narrow analysis is not what the book aimed to do. It aimed to give unknowedgeable readers an introduction to a variety of topics related to food by way of first-person investigation. If you are already well versed in economic and ecologic problems of our food supply chain, this book wasn't written for you. If you aren't, it may be a fascinating read.

But it's the fact that the book is aimed at the general reader that makes factual problems so gross. If it were a work of fiction, Omnivore's Dilemma would be absolutely worthless since it relies on revelation for literary impact. It is only as non-fiction that it has value. So, for example, if it is true, as one reviewer claims, that he did the math and that a bushel of corn does not, in fact, contain fewer calories than the petroleum that went into producing it (as Pollan claims), that's a serious problem for the book. Pollan should have stuck to reporting what he saw rather than quoting analysis, which isn't what the book is, or could be, about.

Would I recommend this book? I guess, yes, but only because I share some of the biases that Pollan does. For example, I think it would be okay if Americans spent a larger proportion of their income on their food, but that's a personal choice. Like Pollan, my real problem with the beef industry is that I want better beef. In Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan tries to put moral spin on our joint preferences, but I can't entirely buy it.

In the end, I would have to say that Omnivore's Dilemma is something like food snob porn. If your reservations about fast food are primarily economic or medical and not gustatory, you're not going to care about this book. On the other hand, if you're willing to spend your leisure time and expendable cash to improve the quality of your diet, you may find--as I did--a wealth of small revelations that make the book a page-turner despite its drawbacks.

This book is an amazing insight into our food supply. As a result of reading it I have made dramatic changes to my diet - all for the good of the planet as well as my family's health. I'm grateful for the insight this author has provided.

The book I bought from this seller came just as described, and within the specified shipping time. I would buy again.

The story of one man seeking to understand the various paths by which food is available to us omnivores. Written with little opinion, the overall theme is we need to individually think about the full pipeline of the food we eat, be comfortable with it or change, and respect the food we have and its sources.

Book was chosen by my Book Club. First time in ten years, I did not finish the selection. Just couldn't stay awake! However, my friends for the most part enjoyed it, and we had a lively discussion.

According to Michael Pollan, the omnivore's dilemma is that if you can eat everything you're not entirely sure what to eat. If that sounds lame and obvious that's because it is, and there are long sections of the book where the author engages in self-indulgent and pointless philosophizing. Nevertheless, the book is informative enough in certain sections and entertaining enough in others to make it a worthwhile read.

For his structure Michael Pollan creates two dichotomies. The first is between corn, the plant that underlies the omnipresent industrial food system, and grass, the plant that harks back to a more innocent and healthier age of man. The second is between two meals: a quick cheap McDonald's meal that Michael Pollan's family eats in their car, and another meal that the author has to spend many months hunting and foraging, entertaining adventures that the author spends many chapters recounting. According to Michael Pollan, both meals are not really possible but while we know that the latter is clearly unsustainable we fail to see that in the former.

Michael Pollan is annoying and pretentious as an intellectual but as a journalist he does manage to find interesting people doing interesting things. By far the most interesting section of the book is on Joel Salatin, a self-described "Christian-conservative-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic farmer" who has ingeniously created his own self-sufficient eco-system called Polyface Farm. Just as it's not really possible to replicate the author's hunting and foraging of a meal, it's also not really possible for farmers to replicate Joel Salatin's eccentric genius in creating a small profitable farm in defiance of the industrial food system.

So what exactly is Michael Pollan's point? As we can observe from his final section where he waxes poetic about the beauty of hunting wild boar and foraging for wild mushrooms the author doesn't have any point because he's too entrenched in comfort in Berkeley, California to really care about the dangerous and serious ramifications of the industrial food system. [...]

Awakening,Useful and thought provoking.
Although, I have skipped through several pages.
And it took a while to finish.
It was a gripping read.
And yes it did change my food buying and eating practices.Which is - buy food and eat food. Not food like products!!

I usually read fiction (to the neglect of my house and family), but I COULD NOT put this book down! Pollan gets down and dirty on the farm(s). I recommend this book to everyone I talk to. It opened my eyes to the behind the scenes world of food and now makes me think before I buy at the grocery store. It also offered me a back to basics alternative to vegetarianism and veganism, both of which I was/am practising part-time because it's healthier for me and the planet. Please read this book, you'll never look at corn and grass the same... and while you're at it, find a local farmers market...

I could have given this book a 5/5, but a couple things forced me not to.

First, the grammar is atrocious. Missing commas, too many ands and ors, and simple linguistic mistakes. There are spelling errors also. It was like the book wasn't edited, and was written by someone with a 5th grade grammar education.

Second, the liberal bias is inherent. There is a lot of good information in this book, but blaming the Nixon administration and praising New Deal programs has no place in this book. It will only scare some people away. I really don't see the need to bring politics into a book informing people about the food industry. Don't get me wrong, it's not prevalent, but if I wanted to read about politics, I'd go to the political science section of the library.

If I were to review the facts about the food industry revealed in this book, I'd give it a 5/5. Alas, I found myself tempted to rip out my hair, because of the grammar, and at times disinterested from the politics. I recommend reading this book, especially if you don't know about the evils of the food industry already. However, be warned of elementary grammar mistakes and political insertions.