The Omnivore’s Dilemma, A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, 2006, Penguin Press

Reviewed by John H. Wilde

It is rare to find a book that is at one time well-written, entertaining, and informative-to the point of significantly altering your perception about something fundamental to your very existence, however, The Omnivore’s Dilemma is just that.  In this case, we are talking about food.  For most of us, our concept of food has become so abstract that if asked where it comes from we could only definitively reply either a supermarket or a restaurant.  However, whether we know it or not, food is still grown somewhere on the Earth and must somehow make it to the familiar places we find it.  Pollan takes us along on his personal journey of discovering where American food comes from, culminating in the preparation of four meals.  We are introduced to the places food originates: the industrial Iowa mono-culture corn-fed farms, the California ‘organic’ farms, a post-industrial self-sustainable Virgina ‘grass-farm’, and some forageable parts of the California landscape.  The varying landscapes and people met along the way, are all described in a way that puts you right there.   

For the person interested in sustainability, this book could not be more to the point.  Most of us get the majority of our food from the industrial agricultural machine whose premise is to treat organisms, operating under biological rules, as commodities whose production can be maximized no different than a widget.  This viewpoint has led to our current situation of high-energy, mega-farming of single crops.  For us, corn has become the mono-culture holding up a great proportion of our food chain.  The forcing of industrial corn farming, at the expense of local diversified farming, has led us into dangerous environmental territory which can only be rated at the lowest end of the sustainability spectrum.  The corn culture requires the cow to be force-fed corn, a thing he would naturally not eat much of, in lieu of grass.  This can only be accomplished through medicating the animals to such an extent that they can withstand illness long enough to make it to slaughter.  Corn, at the exclusion of other crops (except soy beans), can only be made possible with the constant infusion of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  These all require oil for their constitution and these chemicals end up washing off the land, finding their way into the Mississippi River and finally dumping into the Gulf of Mexico creating the algae mess which is currently destroying the Gulf ecosystem.  Under the industrial corn-based system, the soil is degraded and the process is ultimately unsustainable.  The livelihood for the farmer is also unsustainable as his profits, if they could even be called this (it should probably be described in terms of losses); continually dwindle requiring increased corn production.  This is all mandated by government farm regulations and the interests of big-business, like ADM and Cargill, who are the only winners.  However, even the short-term profit makers, like us all, will not be beyond the power of mother-nature who must sort it all out.  This sorting out has been happening as our food has become more harmful to our bodies (the rate of obesity has never been higher), while our food habitat has been made more dangerous.

In contrast to the most common and least sustainable ways of farming, Pollen takes us to the ‘organic’ farm and the post-industrial grass-farm.  Like many once usefully strong concepts, ‘organic’ has been watered-down to mean something less than what it once did.  The government has redefined ‘organic’, so that farms can still be large-scale industrial processes whose products are shipped continents away and turned into TV dinners sold at large chain grocery stores (i.e. Whole Foods).  However, the ‘organic’ farm can be considered more sustainable than the corn-fed farm because they are not, in general, using chemical pesticides and fertilizers. 

The local and diversified grass farm is a better example of a sustainable method.  On this farm (whose story is arguably the best part of the book), the land does not require the infusion of pesticides and fertilizer, as each organism is rotated in a symbiotic and completely sustainable method.  One can imagine this farm (fueled by the sun, which grows the grass, which feeds the animals), continuing into eternity if allowed to do so by the greater forces of mother-nature, and if protected from the always-threatening destructive interests of big-business.  On this farm, the food is grown and eaten locally, and the availability of only seasonal foods is expected and appreciated.

In the last part of the book, Pollen ventures into hunting and gathering which is also entertaining and enlightening.  The ethics raised about hunting and vegetarianism are extremely valuable, and may sway someone’s mind either way, while forcing you to consider what it means to be human.

It is interesting, on this book’s first-run, to notice more than a few typos which will likely be taken care of by the next edition.  That some mis-spellings and missed words happen, only gives more evidence that mechanized techniques (i.e. the spell-check and grammar-check) can never be finally trusted to care for the nuances which can only be best understood by a living thing’s careful scrutiny.  The same is true of the mechanization of food production which ignores that it is dealing with real live things which should not be left solely to the quantifiable realm of the industrial technique to ensure their proper care.

As Pollan points out, we have little control over many things in our lives.  However, what we choose to eat is something over which we can have some control.  For the individual interested in sustainability, this falls under the heading of recognizing quality (in this case your food) and opting-out of the lesser-sustainable characteristics.  It also allows one to personally support those who are wise, such as the self-contained grass-farmer, as opposed to the supporter of the industrial corn machine.  What you choose to eat directly affects sustainability.  Choosing your food (and the culture of people who make it) with care allows for a more interesting experience, and one that doesn’t simply rely on the un-sustainable industrial food machine.