The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals | 
| Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $8.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  469 reviews
Sales Rank: 75
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0143038583
Dewey Decimal Number: 394.12
EAN: 9780143038580
ASIN: 0143038583
Publication Date: August 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A national bestseller that has changed the way readers view the ecology of eating, this revolutionary book by award winner Michael Pollan asks the seemingly simple question: What should we have for dinner? Tracing from source to table each of the food chains that sustain us whether industrial or organic, alternative or processedhe develops a portrait of the American way of eating. The result is a sweeping, surprising exploration of the hungers that have shaped our evolution, and of the profound implications our food choices have for the health of our species and the future of our planet.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 464 more reviews...
 not so much what we eat, but WHO WE ARE November 27, 2008
Like any really great natural history, The Omnivore's Dilemma is not so much about what we eat, but who we are. The book has three main sections - highly-processed (corn-driven) food, local/organic food and self-caught food.
The first part on processed food is a thoughtful expose of how culturally removed we've become from the vast majority of the food we consume - removed from its irresponsible calorie content, desensitized to the lives of the animals we consume, and out of touch with its underlying often senseless economics. Like with Morgan Spurlock's "Supersize Me", your perspective on McDonald's will be forever changed.
The second part of local/organic food is more uplifting. Pollan shows the difficult, but also bright future, for organic and local eating. The lesson seems to be if government got out of the way of small producers, they could blossom and grow more significantly.
The third part - hunting and foraging for one's own food - is a wonderful look at the joys and moral conflict of catching one's own food, from the perspective of doing it for the first time. Pollan's reflections on the grace of nature's bounty are thoughtful and grateful.
The author concludes with a short meditation on what's he's discovered researching how we eat. The ending seemed terse, with much left unsaid, but is still satisfying.
I listened to The Omnivore's Dilemma unabridged on audio CD narrated by Scott Brick. Brick gives a fine performance, confident but questioning, appropriately humble for the author's ambitious search and thoughtful reflections.
I especially recommend this book to anyone in the food and beverage industry.
 Purchased but not available November 24, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was disappointed that the book was offered for purchase, but several days later, I was informed that I would reeive a refund because it was not available from the vendor. No offer was made to suggest the book from an alternate source. I had always assumed that if a book was listed, it would be available, and that the listing would be removed when there were no more to be sold.
Rethinking Food November 24, 2008
As omnivores, this book proposes, our lives are complicated by the question of what to eat in this landscape of plentiful food. The author starts with the most common options--processed supermarket foods and fast food. Tracing these meals backward, he finds an unbelievably tangled system that urges farmers to grow vast amounts of unneeded corn at low prices that are then subsidized by the government. Getting rid of this excess of corn then becomes the driving force behind factory farms, where animals are kept in deplorable conditions and pumped with antibiotics to keep their bodies from breaking down.
Pollan's investigation of mainstream organic farms didn't paint a much better picture, despite the assumption that organic animals are better treated.
Moving toward smaller farms, though, Pollan finds an entirely different attitude, a respect for animals and the rhythms of nature.
Pollan finishes off his quest with a hunter-gatherer mission, and he experiences the difficulty and satisfaction of killing and scavenging a meal from his immediate environment.
I liked the details of this narrative, and the way the facts of factory farming were presented in a way that made the situation clear without seeming to be overly sensationalized. I also liked that Pollan discussed in detail his thoughts about vegetarianism and the reasons why he chose not to go that way, even after seeing how animals were killed and prepared.
Before reading this book, I had a vague idea of the meat industry, of course. Reading this book clarified the situation for me, though, and made me start thinking about the sacrifices I might be willing to make in my own life and my own budget in order to eat more fresh and local foods.
 Books I wish students would read November 22, 2008
As a teacher and omnivorous reader, I evaluate books in terms of "is this something I wish students would read?" (or- is the time invested worth the knowledge gained?) This one earns a qualified "yes". The qualifier is simply that many of them wouldn't read a non-fiction book of this length without a weapon pointed to their heads. But the combination of easy to understand science and personal example is exactly what can encourage students to begin learning outside of the standards-based curriculum that has come to rule education today.
Aside from all that, why do I like this book? My mom was the original "eat your vegetables" mom. Every dinner, she said, should have at least two vegetables; one green. We lived far from the urban centers, so local produce was easy to find. I early on noticed the difference between my grandfather's tomatoes and those from the supermarket.Then I lived in New Orleans where the Whole Foods Coop was walking distance from my apartment. When I became a mom, I used a little grinder to prepare my own baby food.
Time marches on. Now I work full time outside of the house, and am happy with myself if I manage one fruit and two veggies in a whole day to offer to the kids. But I still care about what we eat, and wish we had more viable options to our perfectly beautiful supermarket food, which I suspect to be less than "wholesome".
Maybe with education, we can create more demand, and give more people the option to choose healthier food, and support small scale sustainable farming. I think this book a valuable contribution to that goal.
Food will never look the same again November 20, 2008
The author does an excellent job of explaining how ethics, policy, biology, culture and big business are connected and have shaped the foods that we eat today. Many of our eating habits in the Western diet simply do not make sense and ultimately have global repurcussions.
The author raises many good questions without sounding moralistic or judgemental. Why eat imported organic produce from a foreign country if the shipper burns huge quanitities of fossil fuels to deliver it to you? Why continue to feed cattle corn when their stomachs cannot digest it? Can we really say a food product has "natural raspberry flavor" when the flavor is actually derived from corn?
I enjoyed this author's writing style so well that I will likely buy his other book, "In Defense of Food".
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