The Omnivore's Dilemna: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan
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People have been recommending this to me for years, or acting shocked that i haven’t read it, so i decided it was about time. It is surprisingly engrossing, although quite disturbing, almost as much as “tomatoland”. At least i personally dont eat most of the food whose provenance is described in this book.
This is a book about our current agriculture system, or rather, our food industry, with the facts and information slipped into stories and anecdotes. If you have ever taken for granted that Iowa and Ohio should contain endless corn and soybean fields, fertilized with petroleum derived fertilizer, producing crazy abundance that is sold below cost, with the government making up the difference, you might want to read this book to find out how things got to be this way, and what effect it has on our health and environment.
1 thumbs up!Posted over 1 year ago -
I didn’t read it, but book was read by the author and broadcast in 13 parts on Radio National’s First Person (Australian) last year. I assume it was an edited version given the book has 464 pages.
Pollan writes in a calm, rational ‘voice’ (the written one, though his narrating voice was good too), which for me gave the text more impact than if it had been strident. I suspect his calm delivery is why the book was so well received. Most if not all the information was out there, but it was preaching to the choir. Instead of wagging a finger he shares our dilemma. If there is anyone left who hasn’t read it, they may like to. He isn’t going to preach at you, and he doesn’t trying to guilt you into changing.
Like you anelson, I don’t eat what he is discussing and I have a pretty good idea where most of my food comes from (a lot easier to do where I live). However the environmental impact of agricultural systems anywhere impact us all eventually, in the long run if not the short.
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0 thumbs up!Posted over 1 year ago
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I’m actually a bit upset with his dismissiveness towards vegetarianism. But i have no quarrel with meateaters as long as they dont eat factory farmed meat.
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0 thumbs up!Posted over 1 year ago
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Ah, I didn’t catch that. Possibly something he edited out for the broadcasts. I will have to get the book out of the library.
What I did hear in the radio version was how being vegetarian is not necessarily the same as being green. Some people require their soy beans to be turned into a different form in a factory, then frozen and trucked around the country.
No actions have zero consequences, as I explained to my vegetarian stepdaughter. If you choose to waste food, you are requiring more food to be grown, which in turn displaces the creatures who would have called that now cropping field, home. It actually sunk in and she stopped taking more than she was going to eat.
Pollan’s book seemed to have specifically US content, and much does not apply here. No agricultural subsidies, as one example. I don’t know what choices are best for other places, though factory ‘farming’ wherever it takes place, shows scant to no regard for the creatures in their care. Some of the land here is not suited to crops, but can run meat livestock. Did he discuss how much water it takes to produce dairy?
Did Pollan mention population in the book? I don’t know what happened to ZPG, but population still seems to me like the elephant in the room. Can the US feed 312,863,986 people sustainably?
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0 thumbs up!Posted over 1 year ago
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I suspect you must have a lot of quarrels, then. :D
I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Pollan years ago. It was fantastic. Still haven’t read this book, though.
We are omnivores. I wish I could buy meat from responsible, sustainable producers. Every year we plan to buy a local cow but we never can save the money. I would love to raise chickens for meat and eggs, I would have no problems butchering them myself. It’s not allows where I live.
I grew up in a hunting family and I would like to learn to hunt myself. Another of my goals is to save for bows for my son and I, to practice archery and bow hunt for deer. I was even planning to trap rabbits to keep them out of my Garden and in my stew pot, but turns out that’s illegal, too.
I don’t know why I let that stop me, though. My garden fence and compost pile and the size of my gardens are all illegal here, too. Bah. I laugh in tha face of the law.
Still, I don’t think I’d be able to hide a cow in my backyard :)
I have plenty of respect for vegetarians and plenty of guilt knowing where most of the meat we eat comes from. Hopefully I’m balancing out our footprint a little with the efforts made for our own food production in every area afforded to us.
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0 thumbs up!Posted over 1 year ago
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