Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma

From Scienticity

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Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals. New York : Penguin Press, 2006. 450 pages.

"Nature never plants crops or raises animals in a vast monoculture, practicing diversity instead."

You may be astounded at the practices of the food industry and their effect on our eating habits, health, obesity, their strain on our earth's soil, and the conditions the animals endure.

The production and consumption of corn has drastically changed how most of us eat whether we are aware of this or not. Gradually over the years the local farmer produces less and less of what goes into our tummies.

The author takes us into an experimental journey with one cow, following most of the process that occurs before that slab of beef ends up on our plate. When this journey is over we go to an organic farm in Virginia where cows are also bred for our dining pleasure. The processes here are totally different from those in the previous scenario.

Choosing between these two meal deals is never suggested. The facts are clearly laid out before us and we can decide for ourselves.

This is a large book, clearly written, for our education and awareness. "What you eat is inseparable from how it grows, and how it reaches your table."

-- Notes by EB

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Recently, for the research part of my work, I had to travel to the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. On the flight up, I was preoccupied with work-related matters, so the fact that I hadn't brought along any personal reading was inconsequential. But for the trip back, we had done what we had to do in our meetings, and I wanted something non-work-related to read. I had gotten through the Nagel biography of John Quincy Adams a few weeks ago, had read Stumbling into Happiness by Daniel Gilbert in similar circumstances after my recent trip to Milwaukee last month, and didn't have anything light (for some value of "light") to read. (Maybe something about Stumbling... some day.)

So after a quick perusal of the tiny bookstore/giftshop there at ACY, I chose The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. The four meals: McDonald's (eaten in the car), industrial organic, local organic, and hunter-gatherer. It's told from what is, to me, a sensible perspective: by a party who is active and interested in his food, where it comes from, the impact producing it has on not only Earth and water, but person and word. He goes from Nixon-policy-since cheap grain, corn in particular, and cheap petroleum being the foundation for the processed-food industries (not only corn-fed (with meat by-products) feed-lot cattle, but also corn-syrup Cokes, corn-based additives, etc.), to making a meal from a wild boar he shot himself and mushrooms gathered from where a pine forest had burned. In between he considered the organic industry—Earthbound Farms and the like—and grass-based small farms that carefully husband forest, grass, cattle, poultry, pork, and the like.

His point is not so much to suggest that industrial agriculture or food production is going away, but that there is a distribution of options available, and that an aware person forms a kind of balanced relationship with food acquisition and production. Every meal can't be made from scratch—-bag the meat, grown the veggies, gather the 'shrooms and fruit—-but the awareness of the possibilities can change one's perspective to respectful and grateful participant in the food chain. About his hunter-gatherer meal, he writes:

Perhaps the perfect meal is one that's been fully paid for, that leaves no debt outstanding. This is almost impossible ever to do, which is why I said there was nothing very realistic or applicable about this [the hunter-gatherer] meal. But as a sometimes thing, as a kind of ritual, a meal that is eaten in full consciousness of what it took to make it is worth preparing every now and again, if only as a way to remind us of the true costs of the things we take for granted.

His words reminded me of two quotations [...]. One is via Mr. Fripp from J. G. Bennett, and it's a grace to say before eating:

All life is one and everything that lives is holy.
Plants, animals and people all must eat to live and nourish one another.
We bless the life that has died to give us food.
Let us eat consciously, resolving by our labors to pay the debt of our existence.

The other is from the TV movie of The Martian Chronicles, but the last time I looked, I couldn't find it in the stories:

Life is a gift from the Creator of the Universe. A gift to be savored. To be luxuriated in.

To be grateful for.

So, in gratitude for the read, I'm roasting a chicken. I haven't cooked a chicken in several years. As a rule, we eat meat about once a day, almost always store-bought packaged sliced meat on sandwiches for lunch. For breakfast and dinner, we rarely eat meat at home. A few times a year we'll cook steaks on a Saturday night, turkey for Thanksgiving: meat with about that 4x-per-year happening. Once a month or so we might go out for dinner and have steaks or chicken or fish—and they're really, really good when they're a treat instead of part of the ordinary—but around here, cooking meat of any form is rare. (It was just a decision to reduce the amount of meat we eat, to go higher fiber and lower fat, not something based on the phony conceit of "animal liberation" or any other such nonsense, which Pollan, by the way, refutes admirably.)

I used to roast a chicken most Sundays during the late fall and early winter when I was single. I'd roast a chicken, make meat sauce, and bake bread while the football game was on. That's pretty rare these days. But Pollan's book got me motivated to cook something beyond using faux-meat (texturized soy protein) with canned sauce.

But did you realize that "organic" (i.e., industrial organic) chicken costs 3x what store-brand or Purdue/Tyson does? Yow! (We're having a Publix chicken. I'm not paying $15 for a 4.5-pound roaster. Not today, anyway.)

(Can you smell the thyme? The skin crisping?)

I recommend Pollan's book. It's a bit heavy on eruditeness (you have to spell that out: err-ewe-diet-ness in heavy Southern drawl to both be aware of the appropriate use and make fun of the word at the same time), but it's full of respect for people, for the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon, and for the food that nourishes us all. I'm grateful I read it, I'm grateful I'm cooking this chicken, and I hope to be grateful for the opportunity to serve it over linguine with a baked acorn squash (it's fall!) and some cornbread.

-- Notes by TW

[TW's notes were originally published at Son of Timatollah and are copyright (c) 2007 by Tim Wilson; used by permission.]