The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Omnivore's Dilemma is FULL of info about food. He structures the book into meals he prepares and eats in order to describe the means in which people can access food. These ways include a fast food meal from McDonald's, a meal shopped for at Whole Foods, a meal harvested/slaugthered from Polyface Farms, and a meal in which he hunted and gathered the food.

To me, the most interesting points he made in the book were the industrialization of food production. This alone makes the book worth reading, but I will warn that Pollan goes in to A LOT of detail throughout the book. It seriously seems to contain everything you ever wanted (or maybe didn't want to know) about the foods we eat.

I found the book to be very enlightening, but kept asking myself, "Okay, well then, now what? What should I do with this information?" Over and over, I keep asking myself this question, and then I realized, that's the point. That's the dilemma. What should I eat? What are the best, healthiest, and morally sound foods to eat?

After finishing the book, I watched the documentary Food, Inc. and Pollan is one of the people featured in it. The film gives you some good visuals of many things Pollan describes in his book, so I'd recommend watching it after reading as well.

After both the book and the film, I still don't feel like I have an answer to the question of what foods are good for me and what foods I feel comfortable eating knowing how they came to be on my plate.