The Omnivore's Dilemma By Michael Pollan

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan encourages us to change the way we eat but he never instructs us on what consumers should be eating. He educates us on what we are eating and informs us of all the events that go on behind closed doors. By building and building on our knowledge, he can reel us in instead of driving us away with offensive remarks. He never attacks the fact that most of us eat without thinking about it. In doing this, he can calmly approach his audience with the facts. The entire book focuses on the fact that we, as individuals, need to be more informed on the process of producing our food as well as the actual ingredients in our food. Not everyone is going to change but approaching this one person at a time can change the world.

Michael Pollan informs us of how most organic isn’t organic. We see the term organic all over grocery stores and many of us take it for face value. People buy organic and think they are doing the world a favor by purchasing it. This turns out to be false. Michael Pollan writes, “Organic milk comes from factory farms.” This stunned me at first because I thought organic meant the animals were treated humanely and there was no sort of corruption. This may not be for all farms but there are a lot where the animals don’t see a single blade of grass. These animals are also “tethered to milking machines three times a day.” What makes the milk organic though if they are still treated the same? Well, they are fed grain that is certified organic. Just because the animal is fed organic grains constitutes them labeling it as organic. Most people do not know this. Another organic item he mentions is chicken. These chickens are labeled as free-range chickens. In my mind free-range means the chickens can walk around freely and are not in cages. This is partly true to the reality. The chickens are not kept in cages and they are given a place to walk around but it is not quite what I imagined. These chickens are stuffed into this room with a door leading out to the small pasture. Pollan implicates the reality further when he writes, “But the free-range story seems a bit of a stretch when you discover that the door remains firmly shut until the birds are at least five to six weeks old…and the chickens are slaughtered only two weeks later.” These birds have been locked in the dark for the first three quarters of their life. The farmers fear they will catch something, become sick, and possibly die. When the doors do open, these chickens know nothing but to stay in the dark. They do not know what it’s like to roam free, so they have no reason to roam and take advantage of their “free-range”