|
|
|
Off the ShelfBook Review by Pamela
Phillips-Malcolm The Omnivore’s Dilemma The “omnivore’s dilemma”
is what and
how to eat when one can, theoretically at least, eat anything
(vegetable,
animal, fungus). This dilemma may be key to our dominance as a species,
as the
human brain developed prodigious sensory capacities in order to
determine what
is safe to eat, and how to obtain and prepare it. Particular to modern
Americans is
the dilemma of being able to eat anything at any time, anywhere, and in
any
quantity. Or so it seems. For, as Michael Pollan, author of The
Omnivore’s
Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Penguin Press, New York
2006)
makes clear, in fact most Americans eat a far too homogenous diet. While our supermarkets
burst with
products and our highways with fast food, an astonishing amount of the
American
diet is in fact just corn, processed one way or another. Corn — much of
it genetically
engineered, in the form of corn sweetener, starch and syrup — is found
in the
majority of processed foods. Corn is fed to most animals on industrial
farms,
even if they are not biologically designed to digest it. Pollan traces
the
origins of the corn-human relationship up to its modern production as a
staple
crop that the American government subsidizes with billions of dollars,
so it
can be over-produced in quantities we cannot possibly consume. These
irrational
subsidies benefit corporate agribusinesses, which continue to find new
uses
(think ethanol, construction materials, etc.) for the glut of corn, a
crop that
uses more calories of petroleum energy to produce than it renders in
food
energy. Pollan illustrates how
corn’s rise
to dominance catalyzed the move of animals off the family farm and into
factory
farms — and the subsequent move of most humans off farmland — as
farming came to
be dominated by large “industrial” farms run on business principles,
rather
than concern for nature or health. He shows how industrial food
producers rely
on the invisibility of their methods and their consequences to human,
animal
and environmental health, as well as the willful ignorance of most
consumers —
who are happy to invest in the myths that food originates in the
supermarket,
and that the chicken “nugget” was never actually part of the body of an
animal
denied even the slightest compassion. None of the corporate processors,
agribusinesses or slaughterhouses he approached allowed him to view
their
workings. Without the obscurity afforded by secrecy and consumer
apathy, he
contends, this unnatural system would collapse. Conversely he
volunteered
briefly on the small, “beyond organic” Polyface Farm, which invites an
all-local clientele to witness the slaughtering of their chicken
purchases. Pollan
concludes that such transparency is the key to promoting ethical
farming
practices. Polyface Farm is centered
on grass,
and an intimate knowledge of the symbiosis possible between humans and
the
managed environment. It provides a foil to Pollan’s portrait of
large-scale
“corporate organic.” In exploring the operations of Earthbound Farms
and Whole
Foods, the author illustrates the dilemma posed by the ever-expanding
definition of “organic”: what to make of a plastic box of arugula that
has
traveled 2,000 miles on a gallon or more of gas? Are such products true
to the
original ideals of sustainable and healthful agriculture? The people within the
food systems
Pollan explores are fascinating: an astonishingly prolific Iowa corn
farmer in
the industrial food chain who can’t break even financially, nor feed
his family
the food he grows; a zealously alternative farmer; an avid hunter who
hunts and
gathers most of his food, and practices traditional food ways; and an
assortment of competitive and ambitious fungus foragers. The Omnivore’s Dilemma has been criticized from
various
angles. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, has objected to Pollan’s
treatment of
the chain as inaccurate. In truth, it is singled out a bit unfairly,
since most
of the criticisms Pollan levels at Whole Foods apply equally to the
other
natural foods chains. (An open letter to Pollan is found on Mackey’s
blog.)
Philosopher and animal rights activist Peter Singer has engaged in a
debate
with Pollan on several points. (Some of Singer’s criticisms are found
in his
new book, co-authored with Jim Mason, The Way We Eat: Why Our Food
Choices
Matter, Rodale Press 2006.) Part of the problem, for
this
reviewer, stems from a certain dilettantism inherent in the author’s
approach
of immersing himself temporarily in each of the food systems and
lifestyles he
describes. At one point he refers to himself as a “vegetarian,” while a
few
chapters later he is cooking wild boar. His short-term immersions make
for vivid
storytelling, but run the danger of mistaking tourism for native
wisdom. Can
one be a vegetarian simply by abstaining from meat temporarily, or
might there
be more to it — like a philosophy and commitment to a lifestyle that
evolves
through experience? Pollan’s summary of the arguments for
vegetarianism, vegan
and meat-eating are not as exhaustive or careful as Singer’s and
Mason’s.
Ultimately, Pollan is arguing for informed and conscientious omnivorism. |
CoopScoop Home
|
