This book represents one of two epiphanies I’ve experienced this year. Both involve discovering something I’ve been ignorant of most of my life, but relied on heavily nonetheless. In this case the discovery is an entity crucial to my daily survival – the food chain that sustains me. It’s very revealing of our powers of denial that we can live in both complete dependence and complete ignorance of something in our daily experience. More astounding yet is that our food chain depends on us as well, and the choices we make. Yet I’ve made these choices throughout my life with nearly no understanding of their origins or consequences. I think most of us do. One reason is that the choices are quite difficult, presenting us with The Omnivore’s Dilemma. This book provides an essential step forward by making the dilemma a conscious one.
9 responses to “Book: The Omnivore’s Dilemma / Michael Pollan”
Inspired by your recommendation last summer, I got this book from the library and reading it put me off my feed pretty much. The dilemma part is no joke. I now am conscious of what I am eating and where it probably came from and do I still want to eat that. It has changed my eating habits somewhat, although not as much as I’d like thanks to money and availability considerations. I think this should be required reading for everybody and they won’t mind because it’s surprisingly hard to put it down, the writing is so good and information so startling. Only Bill Bryson could have done better.
My habits have also not changed as much as I’d like, but the new awareness of them keeps nudging me in different directions. Our culture does not make it easy to embrace inconvenience!
I caved and bought the book this week. I CANNOT BELIVE that you can tell if a person survives mostly off of corn from carbon tests. ????? (I hope you don’t mind me checking out your blog…. I got it off of Doug’s).
Hey Aubrey, you’re totally welcome here. Wait till you read where most of the nitrogen in your cells comes from…
Thanks Dylan! …… oh my gosh….. electric lightning! I wish I had more time to read…. I’m LOVING this book. Thank goodness for a two hour plane ride today!
I’m glad that this book throws awareness out there for all those food lovers but i can’t seem to get into it.. it’s kinda boring.
@Moosegirl For me, the fact that I knew almost nothing about a food system that my daily survival depends on relieved some of the boredom.
This book is way too analyatical. We have to read this book for my English class and it’s boring me to tears. This is the reason why most Americans dont read anymore. Why? Because we’re forced to read books that nobody cares about.
@Sarah: It is so sad that our children are being forced to read about where their food comes from in ways that don’t entertain them! They may quit eating altogether – one more burden for the weary American student to bear.