The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is a very interesting journey through the American food system. This book manages to tell a story and question ourselves about why we eat what we do, while providing a wealth of information about the sources, costs, ethics, and politics that drive our decisions on what to have for dinner every night. This book is divided into three sections, each about a different sector of our food supply (Industrial, Organic, and Hunter/Gatherer), and each with a meal representing the adventures within that particular food chain. It's a clever way to structure the book, one that allows him to put such a far-ranging topic under one roof and draw compare and contrasts as he goes.
First up is Industrial, it the most enlightening section of the book. I advise that anyone who reads this portion of The Omnivore's Dilemma will take a serious look at where their own food supply comes from, because the hidden nutritional and environmental costs of processed food are so great. As Pollan writes, you either change your mind because you know the dark nature of the system, or you choose to ignore it. Most Americans choose the latter, of course, and what they're choosing in Pollan's telling is a system of poor health, driven by our increasing reliance on petroleum and corn to produce food that appears inexpensive on the surface but actually comes with a wide variety of unadvertised externalities. If I was interested in becoming a vegetarian, this part of the book would pursue me to lean that way. Pollan includes the section with a fast-food drive through McDonald's, which he somewhat disdains. I agree with him totally on the drawbacks of the Industrial food chain represented by McDonald's, but he could have at least acknowledged that McDonald's actually tastes pretty good at times. I could say that this portion of the chapter caught my eye the most and highly meets my expectations of a book.
Even if you don't read this entire book, this section is...