"The Omnivore’s Dilemma" By Michael Pollan

Reviewed by Tanya Brouwers

What should we have for dinner? is the first and central question in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The answer is not straightforward. In fact, for the largely overweight North American population faced with more choices than minutes in the day, the question is, quite simply, unanswerable unless accompanied by the latest fad diet book. Pollan attempts to understand this “national eating disorder” by (gasp!) eating.

Four meals, each one as different from the other as a chicken is to a McNugget, are followed from plant to plate. Pollan employs a reverse chronology and begins with the “industrial meal”, in this case, McDonalds take-out. This is followed, gratefully, by a meal prepared entirely from the global selections at Whole Foods. The third meal is “beyond organic”. Its fixings are entirely local and are derived from sustainable sources; in this case, Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm, “where chickens get to live like chickens”. Finally, he creates the perfect meal, one in which (almost) every last item he hunted and gathered himself, right down to the yeast in the bread.

The journey, between and within each meal, does indeed provide insight into the current dilemma. In Pollan’s last meal, no question exists as to the origin of even one of the ingredients. It is a rare feast where all costs are fully realized. It is also in direct opposition to the first meal, the one created by industrial design. The cost breakdown of Pollan’s burger, eaten on the fly in the driver’s seat of his car, is so complicated and ambiguous that it is best if the eater focus on Ronald’s happy face on the take-away bag, lest he lose his appetite. And this is precisely the problem with the industrial food chain. As Pollan notes, it is a chain of “forgetting”, for to remember the source of that happy little meal would be to change one’s eating habits forever.

Most surprising, though, were the two organic sections sandwiched in the middle, which, despite lacking the gore of the outer two layers, provided the most shock value, sentence per sentence. Pollan adeptly forces one to question the definition of “organic”. He describes an organically labeled carton of milk, brightly illustrated with “happy cows and verdant pastures”. This is smart packaging at its best, considering the cows in Pollan’s example are milked three times a day in a grassless, large-scale industrial dairy in the western desert of Southern Idaho. True, they’re not full of antibiotics, but where’s the grass from that picture on the carton?

The problem, Pollan stipulates, is that many new organic consumers are still industrial consumers. A shopping trip to Whole Foods is never about the inconveniences of seasons or locale. On the contrary, asparagus from Argentina is obtainable in January and TV dinners are just a quick toss into the basket. Of course, all the items are organic but more importantly they’re “convenient” and convenience is not what small-scale, sustainable agriculture is all about.

Pollan experiences these sustainable “inconveniences” first-hand when he pitches in at Joel Salatin’s “beyond organic” farm, an operation founded on the sustainable principals of management intensive grazing, recycling and small scale production. He soon realizes that Salatin has achieved a rare success in a local community that appreciates the dark orange of his yolks and the “chickeny” taste of his chicken. Salatin, Pollan observes, has found a niche and a niche is the only place a small organic farm can survive in a market dominated by industrial consumers and producers.

When we eat industrially, Pollan notes, we are eating in “perfect ignorance”. At the other end of the spectrum are the pleasures we feel when we eat in “perfect knowledge”. The new organic consumer is somewhere in between and Pollan paints a perfect picture of the dilemma faced by this new set of eaters. With highly entertaining narrative coupled with meticulous attention to detail Pollan has presented the eater in all of us with something to chew on. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a must read for anyone who has “forgotten” the source of their food.

Tanya Brouwers is a Consultant for the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada. Please send comments or questions by phone to 902-893-7256 or by email to oacc@nsac.ca.

 

 

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Posted September 2007