Omnivore's Dilemma - Claire Dougherty AP HUGE Summer Book...

Claire Dougherty
AP HUGE Summer Book Review: The Omnivore’s Dilemma
In the 2006 best-seller The Omnivore’s Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals ,
Michael Pollan explores a seemingly simple question: “what should we have for dinner?” Pollan
believes that Americans are struggling with the “omnivore’s dilemma”-- if you can eat anything,
then what should you eat? We struggle with our plethora of choices, mainly because we lack
what most other cultures have, which are traditions surrounding food. According to Pollan, we
are a “nation of immigrants” who have never had a “single, strong culinary tradition”. He also
states that America has a “national eating disorder” in which we rely on “expert” advice,
nutritionists, food companies, politicians, investigative journalists, etc. They tell us what we
should eat, often with their benefit (in the form of profit) in mind. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma ,
Pollan follows a fast food meal eaten in the car, an organic meal from Whole Foods, an organic
meal from a family-run farm, and a meal that he gathered himself, from the beginning of the
food chain to his plate, to attempt to solve the omnivore’s dilemma and answer the question of
what we should have for dinner. He discovers that eating is not just putting food in our mouths.
To Pollan, eating is a moral, environmental, and even a political issue. To explore what has
happened to Americans and their relationship with food, Pollan explores three general food
chains: industrial, pastoral, and personal. The author best sums up the theme of The Omnivore’s
Dilemma on page 11:“This book is about the pleasure of eating-- the kind of pleasures that are
only deepened by knowing.”
In exploring each of these four meals by tracing them back to the beginning, he discusses
two main themes. The first is that many of America’s nutritional problems can be placed back to