The Omnivore’s Dilemma : A Natural History Of Four Meals


  • The Omnivore's Dilemma : A Natural History Of Four Meals

  • Title

    • The Omnivore’s Dilemma : A Natural History Of Four Meals

  • Attribution

    Michael Pollan

  • Format

    Book

  • Published

    2006

  • Availability

  • Call Number

    • 394.1 Pol
    • 394.1 Pol

  • Description and Reviews

    The bestselling author of The Botany of Desire explores the ecology of eating to unveil why we consume what we consume in the twenty-first century “What should we have for dinner?” Pollan has divided The Omnivore's Dilemma into three parts, one for each of the food chains that sustain us: industrialized food, alternative or “organic” food, and food people obtain by dint of their own hunting, gathering, or gardening. A society of voracious and increasingly confused omnivores, we are just beginning to recognize the profound consequences of the simplest everyday food choices, both for ourselves and for the natural world. summarized from Amazon.com

  • Author

  • Subject

  • Notes

    • What should we have for dinner? When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods might shorten your life. Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from a national eating disorder. As the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous landscape, what’s at stake becomes not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth. Pollan follows each of the food chains–industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves–from the source to the final meal, always emphasizing our coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. The surprising answers Pollan offers have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us.–From publisher description.

  • Contents

    • Our national eating disorder
    • I. Industrial: corn. The plant: corn’s conquest
    • The farm
    • The grain elevator
    • The feedlot: making meat
    • The processing plant : making complex foods
    • The consumer: a republic of fat
    • The meal: fast food
    • II. Pastoral: grass. All flesh is grass
    • Big organic
    • Grass: 13 ways of looking at a pasture
    • The animals: practicing complexity
    • Slaughter: ;in a glass abattoir
    • The market: Greetings from the non-barcode people
    • The meal: grass-fed
    • III. Personal: the forest. The forager
    • The omnivore’s dilemma
    • The ethics of eating animals
    • Hunting: the meat
    • Gathering: the fungi
    • The perfect meal.

  • ISBN

    • 1594200823

  • LCCN

    • 2005056557

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3 Comments

  1. Nancy Sheridan
    Posted February 19, 2007 at 8:47 pm | Permalink

    I am about 2/3rds of the way through the book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. A friend recommended it one night over dinner. I have not eaten a dinner without increased consciousness since! I am curious who else has/is reading the book and what has impacted the reader, what changes s/he has made in their lives.

    What hits me most about this book is how, even though I considered myself a healthy eater, there is so much really bad stuff in food. The entire connection to money and making the most money and selling out is amazing. I am not naive, yet I found myself horrified reading about the treatment of animals raised for food. What made it all the more horrific was how humanely and balanced some farmers are doing their work/livelihood in concert with nature. I have often thought of the ‘web of life’ and that said reading about Michael Salatin’s farm and how incredibly sustainable in the true sense of the word, that is. I thought I was doing well to buy organic foods/produce at the supermarket (when off season here) but the impact of how much gas is involved and how costly and how “organic” farmers are not all that organic, some of them. I am not a farmer, nor do I have a ton of land to do so, but I am more interested than ever in the sustainability discussions that have begun in Tamworth. I want to be involved in some way to make that happen.
    We’ve begun composting again even though there’s two feet of snow outside.
    We’ve thrown out most of our household cleaning products (oxymoron) and have been buying more items at Rivendell Farm. It makes me feel good to keep my money local and know the people from whom I am buying.
    I’m rambling…I’d love to hear from others about their sense of the book. i also think this is such a cool set up that the library has and was excited to use it!! Thanks again, Cook LIbrary folks, for giving us another way to experience our community!
    Nancy Sheridan

    The Omnivore's Dilemma, comment

  2. Jeff
    Posted March 5, 2007 at 8:38 pm | Permalink

    I haven’t read the book, but the issue of local sustainability is important.
    Perhaps you or others might be interested in getting together informally or “webally” (my word!), to talk and share what we’ve been doing as large/small growers of food.
    I’m sure there are many people here in Tamworth would would love to begin growing their own food but don’t know where to begin.
    Jeff
    liketelevisionsnow@gmail.com

    [tags]local, sustainability, organic, food, discussions, groups[/tags]

  3. Jay
    Posted March 6, 2007 at 2:43 pm | Permalink

    You two should know that there is a group already meeting discussing local sustainability issues. And we have assembled a temporary “Sustainability Collection” to support them in their endeavors. For more information, check the Tamworth Exchange for meeting times, and/or click here to see the sustainability collection.

    22840, food, organic, sustainability, sustainability collection

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