The Omnivore's Dilemma

Like Caesar's Gaul, this book is divided into three parts. I forget which parts of Germany Caeesar found most uninteresting, but I could have very happily done without the third section of this book. It needed a third section, there's no doubt about that, but the one provided was unrelated to the other two and, to me, completely uninteresting.

The other two sections more than made up for that defect, however. In the first, Pollan explores Corn with a capital C, and all that goes with it and stems from it (at least with regard to our food supply). In the second part, he explores organic and holistic farming and makes us realize that the second is probably far more important than the first. The final section is a silly romp in which the author becomes a hunter-gatherer and prepares a meal where all the ingredients were directly grown, hunted or scavenged by himself.

I initially thought this was going to be a mindless excursion of the "Meat bad, veggies good" sort, but it isn't that at all. Understand that I'm not anti-vegetarianism, and I do understand and agree with the arguments against animal suffering, but I'm not in the mood to read 400 odd pages on that subject (and never will be). I was pleased to find that Pollan is as conflicted on these subjects as every intelligent human should be, and that while leaning toward the "our food supply is messed up" side, he is fairly objective and mostly scientific throughout. I think it's hard to look at the totality of industrial food production and NOT think that it is messed up, broken, and dangerous for us both as individuals and as a nation, so that objectivity is worth applauding.

I actually learned quite a bit from this book, which surprised me a little, because I thought I knew more than (as it turns out) I actually did. Putting aside the final section, I found this both entertaining and educational, and would recommend it to anyone who eats.

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