Omnivore's Dilemma

OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA: A NATURAL HISTORY OF FOUR MEALS: Penguin Press, 2006: Nonfiction: 450 pgs.

As omnivores, we humans can eat a wide range of food. As members of our modern society, our choices seem more extensive than ever. One trip to the grocery store and you are faced with isles of options. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan attempts to follow four meals from the farms where they are planted or raised to the table where they are consumed. Each meal is the product of a different type of agricultural process from highly manufactured fast food, to organic foods, to a meal he hunted and gathered on his own.

I enjoyed the premise of this book along with the parts which were essentially science writing describing farming theory and practice. However, the rest of the book seemed to me rambling justifications from a city boy that likes meat too much to be a vegetarian, but can not seem to handle the thought that his food once had a face. Maybe I should blame my childhood spent on a cattle feed lot, but I thought he came off as a bit of a sissy.