The Omnivore's Dilemma

I’m not even sure where to start with my thoughts on Part I of The Omnivore’s Dilemma – so much mind-blowing, terrifying and just plain interesting information. Even though I’ve already read the book, I learned SO MUCH from this dense section. For the purpose of avoiding rants and passionate personal tangents, I want to focus less on the content and more on the structure of the book.

Pollan seems to be tirelessly curious. He follows each subject matter he writes about to the very end. He gives readers detailed descriptions of everything from corn sex to the processing of high fructose corn syrup. In each description, he goes far beyond the basic facts to provide background, historical context, scientific data and statistics. He answers any potential questions a reader might have before they even think to ask.

This type of informational exploration on the many factors of our industrial food systems could get boring. But Pollan intersperses the hard facts and laborious details with narratives about the people he learned from as well as personal experience. We come to a sense of who George Naylor is and what his perception of industrial corn processing is. We hear about Pollan’s own experience eating fast food with his family (I loved his son’s line “No, they taste like what they are, which is nuggets…duh”). Not only do the profiles and personal reflection within the more technical writing make the reading more enjoyable, they also provide insights into the reality of being a part of America’s industrialized food system.

Pollan also structures his writing very effectively, breaking up the dense content into digestible (pun intended) sections. The headings provided nice direction and helped me to not get lost in the complicated subject matter. And I think it was wise of him to choose one plant to focus on and follow through the entire process. This is probably one of the only ways to write about our incredibly convoluted food system and make it manageable to read. It would be incredibly difficult to choose a place to start otherwise.

I can’t resist bringing up one section, because it relates so well to a previous class discussion. ‘Putting it back together again: Processed foods’ reminded me of Jordan’s presentation on up and coming food technology. Pollan brought up the idea that with a lot of food technology, we try to move from meal-in-a-pill to the pill-in-a-meal. Though I was thinking that creating healthier more convenient food products might be one of the benefits of the ‘food printers’ we read about, I’m starting to see this in a more negative light after reading Pollan’s thoughts on the subject. I’m just not sure that increased mechanization and processing of our food can have a place in making it more nutritious. There’s no getting around the fact that fresher, whole foods contain the most amount of energy and nutrition, and the ‘fortifications’ we use are tied up in so much detrimental processing and waste they really can’t be worth the perceived benefits. 

So much to think about and still two more sections to read!