The Omnivore's Dilemma By Michael Pollan

The Omnivore’s Dilemma was written by Michael Pollan and published in 2006. He wrote the book to inform consumers about where their food actually comes from and some of the different ways and processes that food is grown and processed to bring it to the grocery store shelves or the farmers market. Pollan had a very interesting approach to showing consumers just exactly where their food comes from through a type of documentary stance. First, he tried to follow the industrial food chain, from a bushel of corn from a field in Iowa along the complex and strange path it takes to end up in a fast-food place. Secondly, he follows the pastoral food chain by exploring alternatives to industrial food and farming by looking into organic and local food

He spends 120 pages explaining how corn goes from the field to the elevator, to a feedlot or processing plant to the consumer through so many products and fast-food. Pollan is very much against the Industrial food chain. He believes that it is hurting the earth because of all the inputs such as chemicals and the problems that farmers have with erosion. He was also quite angry that he was not allowed to go through a food processing plant such as Cargill or ADM and so they were obviously hiding something. He did not like the fact that cattle were raised in feedlots where they were pumped full of corn which they were not made to digest, they had to be adapted to because grass is their normal food. In the second section Pollan spent about 154 pages going on and on about organics and Joel Salatin’s farm in Virginia. Pollan loved this section. He was all for the organic food chain. He loves shopping at whole foods and buying expensive organic foods. He was however surprised to find that the organic farms where just as industrial in size and scale as some monoculture corn and soybean farms in Iowa. They did not use the chemicals that the industrial food chain does but they were also causing more erosion issues due to running the cultivator so many times to get rid of weeds. Pollan loved working on Salatin’s farm for a week. He was all for the natural way of feeding livestock and

His goal seemed to be to convert people to give up the industrial food chain and go organic or local so he failed in this as I am still going to shop at Walmart and stay away from expensive organic food. His biased opinion really threw me off and angered me quite a bit at points. He was trying to prove quite adamantly that the industrial food chain is bad and they are trying to hid stuff. This was proved by the fact that Cargill and ADM would not allow him to enter their processing facilities. He was also trying to prove that animals are happier and healthier when they are allowed to roam free and express themselves. He again proved this while he was at Salatin’s farm because the pigs were just so “happy” while rooting around in the cow manure searching for fermenting corn that was mixed in. Pollan definitely suggests that the reader should carefully consider what they are eating and the impact it is having on the environment. He believes that the industrial food chain is harming the ground in more ways than imaginable and that it is not considering all the costs. Pollan is leaving out a great deal about how impractical it is to raise animals or crops organically. It takes much longer to raise animals due to little to no corn in their diets. They need acres and acres of land for pasture to graze and it is a