How Industrial Food Chains Impact Health

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com
At a Glance
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan presents convincing arguments for sustainable, locally produced
foods. He uses in-depth research to detail the unpleasant and sometimes horrifying truths about large-scale,
industrialized food production.
In Section 1, Pollan gives readers an inside look at the world of industrial corn. He examines common
fast food items and snack foods to show readers just how much high fructose corn syrup there is in the
average American diet.
In Section 2, Pollan switches focus to the world of organic foods. He compares the organic food
produced in large-scale farming operations to that made on a small scale with locally-sourced produce.
In Section 3, Pollan recounts his own experiences hunting and gathering food. He readily admits that
isn't a reasonable or convenient solution to our food problem, but recommends the experience to those
who want to feel closer to the food they eat.
Introduction
Going to the grocery store can be an exercise in guilt. You know—or think you know—that you should
buy free-range eggs, organic celery, and grass-fed beef. But should you pay attention to the labels or to
the price? Should you shop at your local farmers market, or grow your own tomatoes? These, and other
pressing issues, are explored in The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael
Pollan, published in 2006.
Pollan, an entertaining writer and expert foodie who reached nonfiction fame with The Botany of Desire
and An Eater’s Manifesto, attempts to answer the question that weighs on all of America: do we save our
money or our planet...and how? In three info-packed and wryly funny sections, Pollan suggests ways in
which to do both. Section 1, titled “Industrial Corn,” examines the source of much of our mass-produced
calories, from sweet corn syrup to corn-fed cattle. As a shocking conclusion, Pollan dissects a fast-food
meal ingredient by ingredient, in order to show just how much corn Americans ingest.
Section 2, or “Pastoral Grass,” investigates the growing culture of organic farming, and questions
whether or not it is truly good for the planet. A large-scale industrial “organic” farm is compared to a
much smaller operation, where the farmer takes active steps to work within the natural ecology. Pollan
caps this section with a meal made entirely of food purchased at Whole Foods, a well-known national
purveyor of organic food.
Finally, in Section 3, Pollan goes primitive in “The Forest,” and eats a meal consisting entirely of food
he caught and foraged himself. While he admits that this is not exactly practical, he advises it as a
meditative exercise for those of us who have lost touch with the source of our sustenance.
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04/06/2019
The Omnivore’s Dilemma wasThe
oneOmnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Summary - eNotes.com
of a number of food-centric books published in the past decade,
including Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, all of which
vilify industrial farming and act as proponents for locally produced and grown food. This trend has
translated to movies as well, and Pollan himself narrated the 2009 film Food, Inc., based loosely on The
Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Synopsis
Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, published in 2006 by
Penguin Press, is the author's examination of Americans' overall eating habits. Pollan approaches this
subject by looking at food as a naturalist does. He points out that all of our food originates as plants,
animals, and fungi.
The book is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on industrial farming, the second
analyzes organic food, and the third discusses hunting and gathering one's own food. Each section ends
with a meal, and Pollan's narrative traces the meal back to its origins.
In the book's first section, Pollan zeroes in on the corn industry. Corn and oil compose the heart of the
food industry: corn as a crop with byproducts, and oil as the fossil fuels that transport it to our tables.
Pollan analyzes a McDonald’s lunch. The meal’s origins are on a cornfield in Iowa, with a main focus
on the burgers that come from the steer that eat the corn. The oil used for cooking the fries also comes
from corn. In the milk shakes and sodas, the syrup that is used also comes from corn. Amazingly, corn
also makes up thirteen of the thirty-eight ingredients in Chicken McNuggets. Any reasonable reader
would ask, “How can this be?”
Pollan continues his assault on corn, which makes up more than one fourth of the 45,000 items in a
supermarket. Eggs, chickens, corn starch, corn oil, corn syrup, prepared foods, toothpaste, and
mayonnaise all go back to corn.
What has happened? The food industry went overboard with the corn plant and sold its many byproducts
to the American people, making them become fatter and fatter. This exploitation of corn also did not
help farmers.
Pollan makes a meal from the ingredients from a small Virginia farm as a lesson in our food, where it
comes from, and what our expectations are from such a local meal. He shows readers how far we have
come as a society from knowing the sources of our food. What ends up on our tables little resembles its
original state.
Critics appreciate Pollan’s cause and admire his compelling and clear writing. The Omnivore’s Dilemma
alerts its readers to the changes in our country’s food industry and how radically it has changed our
health, diet, and country.
04/06/2019 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Summary - eNotes.com
04/06/2019 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Additional Summary - eNotes.com
Extended Summary
Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma sets out to answer a single question: “What should we have
for dinner?” This question of what to eat is of particular importance to the omnivore. Omnivores are
capable of eating a great variety of foods—unlike monarch butterflies, which only eat milkweed.
Unfortunately, not everything that can be eaten is nutritious, so every omnivore is stuck between fearing
and loving new foods. This book discusses how to choose.
Pollan points out that many cultures base their eating decisions on tradition. In fact, many traditions that
seem relatively accidental actually render food nutritious. For example, Pollan uses the “French
Paradox” to illustrate that although the French seem to eat a great deal of unhealthful food, such as
chocolates, cheeses, and wines, they tend to be healthier than Americans are. Pollan points out that this
is because the French also have traditions that guide the amount of food one should eat. In contrast,
America has few culinary traditions, which is why Americans seem especially prone to adopting fad
diets.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma received an enthusiastic critical reception because it convincingly explains the
roots of “America’s National Eating Disorder.” America faces numerous food-related illnesses,
including heart disease, obesity, and increasing diagnoses of type II diabetes. These diseases have been
on the rise over the past few decades, especially since the 1970s. To explore what has happened to
Americans and their food, Pollan decides to explore three general “food chains,” and at the end of each
he prepares a meal built from that food chain. The three food chains are the industrial, the pastoral, and
the personal, and they form the organizing structure of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Industrial Food Chain
Pollan first investigates the industrial food chain. He starts at the supermarket, which ostensibly offers a
varied cornucopia of food. However, what Pollan discovers is that the majority of the food offered in the
supermarket is made from processed corn, so much so that if people are what they eat then Americans
are corn. Pollan explains how corn became an American staple crop during the 1970s as a result of
technological advances, the agricultural policies of the Nixon administration, and a corporate preference
for cheap corn.
Interviewing George Naylor, a corn farmer from Iowa, Pollan discovers that this system of producing
excessive amounts of corn does not actually benefit the farmer. Corn is being produced to such an
amazing degree that it has outrun demand, which keeps the price of corn lower than it costs to produce
it. Consequently, Naylor argues that the corn farmer’s only option is to grow more corn, which causes
the supply to continue to outstrip demand, thus driving the price down further. Pollan suggests that corn
farmers rely on government subsidies to survive. He asks readers to consider, if this system is not
serving the farmer, who is benefiting?
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Pollan suggests that the industrial food chain primarily benefits agricultural corporations like Cargill and
ADM because they are able to buy corn at a consistently cheap price and then process the cheap corn
into “value added” products. This system has the benefit of keeping supermarket prices low as well, but
Pollan highlights the indirect costs paid by the consumer. To start, corn is heavily subsidized by the
United States Department of Agriculture, which means that American consumers are actually paying for
corn with their taxes. Furthermore, Pollan points out that industrial agriculture also relies on synthetic
fertilizers, which means that it is using not only solar energy but a significant amount of fossil fuel
energy as well. This system relies on monocultures, which are vulnerable, so it also requires herbicides
and pesticides to survive. In other words, this is a problematic system that needs a variety of expensive
solutions to operate.
To discuss how corn has become so ubiquitous, Pollan explains that corn can be easily processed, and its
derivatives (such as high-fructose corn syrup) make their way into a very wide variety of products. Corn
also makes its way into the American stomach via livestock. Pollan explains that centuries of evolution
are currently thwarted by industrial agriculture because concentrated animal-feeding operations feed
cattle cheap corn rather than the grass their digestive systems are designed to convert into muscle.
Pollan suggests that although it may seem like the cheapest foods in the supermarket are derived from
corn, that low price comes from a variety of synthetic inputs (e.g., synthetic nitrogen) and subsidies.
Pastoral Food Chain
Many people have begun to rebel against industrial food, creating a new market for organic food. In the
supermarket, Pollan is impressed by the pastoral imagery on the labels of organic foods; they often
depict red barns and other traditional, preindustrial farming scenes. However, when Pollan finds an
“organic TV dinner,” he decides to investigate the history of organic food. He asks, isn’t organic TV
dinner a contradiction of terms? Pollan discovers that the regulations that guide organic foods do not
always match the pastoral imagery on the label.
For example, “organic” meat is made without antibiotics. However, it is often still made according to a
concentrated-population (industrial) model. Pollan points out the irony that antibiotics are given to cattle
to protect them from disease, which is a risk heightened by concentrated population in a concentrated
animal-feeding operation. Meanwhile, organic produce is made without herbicides, pesticides, or
fertilizers, but this process requires heavy tilling, which erodes topsoil. It seems that industrial organic
is not a contradiction of terms after all.
However, when Pollan contrasts his industrial meal with his industrial organic meal, he finds important
differences. Pollan argues that organic requirements do raise the food industry’s standard and that the
reduction of pesticides and herbicides in the organic model is an important improvement over the
standard industrial model. However, both systems are precarious because they rely on concentrated
populations and monocultures. Furthermore, both systems invite food to be shipped around the world,
which Pollan interprets as a fossil fuel input. Ultimately, this model does not strike Pollan as a
sustainable one.
He finds a more sustainable alternative in Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm. When Salatin’s father, William,
bought the land on which Joel now farms, the soil was exhausted from being made to fit the industrial
corn model of agriculture. Joel and his father rejuvenated the land by planting trees on the north-facing
hills and sowing grass on the rest of the land. By managing the grass using livestock, Salatin has
restored the health of his farm’s soil. Consequently, Salatin considers himself a “grass farmer.”
Grass farming considers grass to be a photovoltaic unit that captures energy from the sun to be fed to
animals. Salatin then uses management-intensive grazing techniques that maximize the use of the grass.
Salatin also “stacks” his animals. In practice, this means that Salatin will set his cattle to graze grass for
a short period of time. After the cattle move on, chickens follow. The chickens feed on pests that are
present in the manure, providing a natural alternative to pesticides. Pollan marvels that every aspect of
Polyface Farm seems connected to another natural process.
Pollan draws several conclusions from his experience on Polyface. Among them, he finds that the food
—especially the eggs and the chicken—tastes much better when fed on grass. Salatin’s alternative
agriculture relies on local farming and local communities to produce food. Aside from the taste, perhaps
the biggest advantage of this model is its transparency. Salatin’s customers can inspect his operation at
any time, which stands in contrast to the feedlots of the industrial food chain. When Pollan prepares his
pastoral meal, he is careful to focus on quality, locally grown food to make it.
Personal Food Chain
Pollan’s final exploration is the personal food chain. Pollan admits that this last chain is not a realistic
alternative to the industrial model because it consists of hunting and gathering. Pollan finds guides to
take him boar and mushroom hunting, and the results of these adventures often surprise him. Pollan
devotes a chapter to the ethics of eating meat and even adopts a vegetarian lifestyle for a month.
However, he ultimately elects to view eating meat as part of an ecological chain of actions rather than a
moral act. Still, when Pollan begins hunting, he is surprised by his enthusiastic reaction to the hunt.
Ironically, when he sees a photo of him standing over a boar, he feels deeply embarrassed until he sees a
similar shot that includes aspects of the entire food chain. Pollan is less conflicted over his mushroom
gathering, but he is equally intrigued with it.
Pollan describes his final meal as perfect because it offers many things a normal meal does not.
Although his personal meal is not a realistic model to feed an entire nation, Pollan is impressed with the
way that it connects him to every aspect of the food chain. He contrasts this with an increasingly
common American meal: each family member eating an individual microwavable meal made from
processed foods and shipped from across the country. Pollan’s emphasis on the consciousness involved
in his personal meal highlights the problems posed by America’s national eating disorder and its reliance
on an industrial food chain that seeks to create a quantity of food units rather than quality food that is
tasty and nutritious.
04/06/2019 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Chapter Summaries - eNotes.com
Chapter 1 Summary
In “The Plant: Corn’s Conquest,” Michael Pollan begins his first investigation into what he calls the
“industrial food chain.” Most American consumers get their food from the supermarket, and Pollan uses
several examples to discuss how far removed the supermarket—with its air conditioning, florescent
lighting, and “machine-lathed” baby carrots—is from the natural world. By the time Pollan’s exploration
of the supermarket reaches Pop-Tarts and Twinkies, it seems that he has established the need to
investigate where these “foods” come from.
Although the American supermarket appears to offer a wide variety of foods—a representation of
biodiversity—his investigation yields a surprising result. Corn, or Zea mays, is in nearly everything. It
can be eaten as corn, it can be fed to livestock, and it has many derivative products that few realize have
their base in corn. To illustrate his point, Pollan invites his readers to consider the chicken nugget. The
chicken itself is fed corn. Cornstarch can be found in the glues that hold a chicken nugget together, corn
flour is used in the batter, and corn oil is used to fry the nugget. Moreover, most soft drinks are
sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. It seems that corn is a part of us, and Pollan actually explains
that scientists are able to track the amount of carbon in the average American body that comes from
corn. It has come to the point that Americans rely more on corn than the Mayans did, so much so that
Pollan refers to the American public as “processed corn, walking.” If people are what they eat, then it
seems that corn has indeed conquered the American body.
Ironically, when Europeans and the Native Americans first met, the Europeans valued wheat at their
staple crop. However, they soon discovered that a single kernel of corn would return far more kernels
than wheat. Since then, Americans have been planting more and more corn. Pollan points out that Zea
mays is especially easy to cross pollinate to create hybrid crops. Hybrids often combine the strengths of
two types of corn to produce a superior crop. Until recently, the ease with which these strands of corn
were cross-pollinated was a difficulty for corporations to control. Eventually, a hybrid was discovered
that produced a superior yield in the first generation (or F-1) and an inferior yield in the second, creating
what Pollan refers to as
the biological equivalent of a patent. Corn was now ready for corporate attention.
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04/06/2019 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Chapter 2 Summary - eNotes.com
Chapter 2 Summary
In “The Farm,” Michael Pollan tells the story of George Naylor, a corn farmer from Iowa, to illustrate
the impact that corporate industry, government policy, and technological innovation have on the
production of corn. He discovers that corn is being grossly overproduced—to the detriment of the
American farmer but to the benefit of corporations and grain exporters. Ironically, it has come to the
point that it costs a dollar more to produce corn than it does to sell it. George Naylor is able to produce
twice as much corn per acre as his father could, who in turn could have said the same thing about his
own father. However, in spite of these impressive yields, Naylor and many other farmers struggle to
make ends meet.
Pollan marvels at the technological innovations that have been made in agriculture but cautions that
American agriculture relies on an ecological subsidy that requires a considerable amount of energy
derived from fossil fuels. Pollan suggests that synthetic nitrogen, invented by Fritz Haber at the start of
the twentieth century, is the most important invention of the twentieth century and that much of the
world would face starvation without it. Synthetic nitrogen allows farmers to give their soil necessary
nitrogen—although Pollan points out that the process actually requires fossil fuels to create the synthetic
nitrogen. Consequently, although these crops once relied exclusively on solar energy to grow, they now
rely on fossil fuels. More recently, scientists have begun to increase crop yields at the genetic level,
which allows a greater number of corn stalks to grow in proximity to each other, which in turn improves
the annual yield.
Pollan introduces George Naylor’s “Naylor Curve.” The economics of supply and demand seem to fail
to apply to agriculture because the demand will be constant no matter what happens in the economy.
However, since the 1970s and the policies of Richard Nixon, farmers have been required to “go big” to
survive. Pollan explains that the result has been an increase in the production of corn. Ironically,
according to Naylor’s curve, this drives down the price of corn, which benefits corporations like Cargill
and Coca-Cola as well as consumers who need corn to feed their livestock or their families—but the
only way farmers can pay their bills is to produce more corn, which in turn drives down the price.
Meanwhile, the government subsidizes farmers to continue producing exorbitant amounts of corn. It
seems that the industrial food chain has led to a perversion of the nitrogen cycle, agriculture, and
perhaps the diet of America.
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Chapter 3 Summary
In the first chapter, “The Plant: Corn’s Conquest,” Michael Pollan sets out to trace the industrial food
chain back from the products he finds in the supermarket. In “The Farm,” he manages to find where
many of those foods are produced. However, by the time he reaches “The Elevator,” he discovers the
impossibility of his task. Pollan makes a distinction between a farmer’s bushels of corn and corn as a
fungible commodity. As much as Pollan might wish to trace George Naylor’s corn to its final
destination, it is mixed with corn from numerous other farmers (each of whom may have a uniquely
created or hybrid strand of corn) at the elevator before it is shipped to a variety of locations.
Corn was not always so abstract, nor was it always so ubiquitous. Pollan notes that up to 1850, corn was
stored in and shipped in bags that contained the farmer’s address. The buyer would pay for the corn only
after inspecting it upon arrival. However, the Chicago Board of Trade instituted a grading system in
1856, which allows buyers to ignore who produces the corn and which also invites farmers to ignore any
objective in growing corn except yield or, in Pollan’s words, “the quality of sheer quantity.” When
Pollan arrives at the elevator, he discovers piles of excess corn on the ground and discovers that there is
a colossal surplus of corn being produced by America’s extremely efficient farmers. Pollan concludes:
Moving that mountain of cheap corn...has become the principal task of the industrial food
system, since the supply of corn vastly exceeds the demand.
From an ecological perspective, there is a surplus of biomass that nature must be forced to absorb.
Pollan suggests that factory farming, obesity in America, and the prevalence of food poisoning are all
indirect consequences of this system.
Pollan points out that a government subsidy pays farmers for their corn, so much so that the U.S.
Department of Agriculture pays about nineteen billion dollars each year to farmers. Pollan notes that the
farmers are blamed for this subsidy, but the beneficiaries of this policy are companies, represented by
Cargill and ADM. These two companies, Pollan notes, sell fertilizer and pesticides, and they operate
most of America’s grain elevators. Pollan also suggests that they
help write many of the rules that govern this whole game, for Cargill and ADM exert
considerable influence over U.S. agricultural policies.
Pollan next asks, where does all of the corn go? Although Pollan cannot follow Naylor’s corn, he can
follow the commodity to its next step. Naylor notes that three fifths of America’s corn ends up on the
factory farm, where cattle are fattened for slaughter. Ironically, cattle have never eaten corn, but
Nature abhors a surplus, and the corn must be consumed. Enter the corn-fed American
steer.
With this, Pollan is ready to move on from “The Elevator” to the next link in the industrial food chain.
Chapter 4 Summary
In “The Feedlot,” Michael Pollan’s investigation into the industrial food chain leads him to Garden City,
Kansas, an industrial feedlot. Pollan makes several important distinctions, including the difference
between solar-powered food and fossil fuel–powered food, between systems that produce food without
problems and systems that produce food problematically, and between economic logic and evolutionary
logic. In each case, Pollan concludes that the feedlot has produced more problems than solutions.
For corporate corn interests like ADM and Cargill, the principal advantage of the feedlot is that it forces
cattle to consume a diet that is three-fifths corn. As Pollan explains in “The Farm,” corn is currently
being produced very cheaply, although its reliance on synthetic nitrogen means that it relies on fossil
fuel energy rather than solar energy. Cattle have evolved to eat grasses, a relationship that benefits the
grass as cows spread grass seeds and prevent shrubs and trees from encroaching on grassland habitats.
However, the feedlot largely eliminates grass from the diet of cattle in preference of cheap corn. Corn
also has the advantage of fattening cattle faster, which means that cattle can be brought to a high weight
more quickly. It takes less than two years to bring cattle to slaughter now; decades ago, it could take as
long as five years.
However, although this process may seem economically efficient, it produces several problems. Perhaps
the most pressing problem for Garden City, Kansas, is that it is left with reeking manure pits. On the
farm, Pollan explains, farmers could use the manure of their cattle as fertilizer, creating a closed loop.
However, the manure produced at the feedlot is too high in phosphorous and nitrogen to be used as
fertilizer. Furthermore, the movement of cattle from a decentralized population to a concentrated animal
feeding operation has produced medical problems for the cattle. Whenever a population is concentrated,
disease follows. However, disease is controlled in the feedlot through the extensive use of antibiotics, a
“solution” that has led to an increase in drug-resistant bacteria.
Although these practices seem to make a great deal of money for the corporate interests that profit from
concentrated animal feeding operations, and they also produce relatively cheap meat for the population
to consume, Pollan cautions that these practices are not without hidden costs. Farmers now have a
fertility problem that requires them to use chemical fertilizers to grow their crops. The feedlots produce
pollution through the concentration of waste, not to mention the medical threat posed by drug-resistant
bacteria. The entire system pushes the industrial food chain to rely on fossil fuels to produce synthetic
nitrogen for corn feed and the transportation of cattle rather than the solar energy represented in grasses
that cattle evolved to eat. Pollan concludes that the
corn-fed feedlot steer represents the ultimate triumph of industrial thinking over the logic of
evolution.
Chapter 5 Summary
In “The Processing Plant,” Pollan attempts to track down what happens to the corn that is not sent to the
feedlot. Much of it ends up in processing plants. Pollan distinguishes between a traditional mill, which
grinds corn into flour to produce tortillas, and wet mills, which rely on a great deal of water, energy
derived from fossil fuels, and steel tanks. These wet mills are like an artificial digestive system that
breaks corn down into its molecular parts so it can be used to produce, among many other things, high-
fructose corn syrup. Pollan explains that once corn is broken down into these component parts, food
scientists can process it to create nearly anything.
The benefit of processed foods is that it allows people that live in northern latitudes to taste pineapple in
winter. Less food spoils, so it seems that consumers have freed themselves from their reliance on natural
systems. Pollan explains that food companies like General Mills process food for profit rather than
nutrition. Pollan outlines his argument by pointing out that people can only eat so much food, a concept
represented by terms like fixed stomach and inelastic demand. He invites readers to consider, If people
can only eat so much food, how can a company or industry’s profits grow? Pollan explains that the
population expanding is too slow, but there are two short-term strategies: the first is to coax people to eat
more; the second is convincing consumers to spend more money for the same amount of food. Pollan
concludes:
Turning cheap corn into complex food systems is an excellent way to achieve both goals.
Pollan goes on to discuss other innovations that have come from processed foods, including
“nutraceutical foods.” He cites a recent product that combines the cancer-fighting flavonoid phenols of
red wine with the dietary fiber of a red apple. Pollan recalls a dream from the 1960s in which an entire
meal’s nutrients could be put into a pill; he suggests that today the dream is to put pills into food. To
point out the odd nature of these foods, Pollan cites an article entitled “Getting More Fruits and
Vegetables into Food” and comments, “I had thought fruits and vegetables were already foods.” Pollan
suggests that a recent innovation, “resistant starch,” is indigestible. This means people can eat foods
built from resistant starch without actually digesting them. Pollan concludes that
when fake sugars and fake fats are joined by fake starches, the food industry will at long
last have overcome the dilemma of the fixed stomach…since this food will leave no trace.
Chapter 6 Summary
In “The Consumer,” Pollan explains the contribution that corn and its derivative products have had on
America’s health. Although America is currently facing what the surgeon general calls an “obesity
epidemic,” Pollan explains that the current state of emergency has a public health predecessor in
alcohol. He explains that in the 1820s, most Americans drank corn whiskey throughout the day, causing
America to become known as a “republic of alcohol.” At the time, there was an abundance of cheap
corn, so it was only natural that people began to turn it into liquor.
Pollan suggests that Americans now live in a “republic of fat.” He refers to a United Nations report from
2000 that claims that the number of people suffering from over-nutrition (one billion) had surpassed the
number of people suffering from malnutrition (800 million). Pollan points out that type II diabetes has
become more prevalent than ever before, so much so that the life expectancy of children born in
America is shorter than that of their parents. Pollan acknowledges that this obesity epidemic has a
variety of causes (including changes in lifestyle, work, and marketing) but he invites his audience to
consider the impact of excessive and cheap corn, and particularly the rise of high-fructose corn syrup, on
America’s waistline.
In “The Farm,” Pollan explained how government policies from the 1970s created an excess supply of
corn, which has since kept the price consistently low. Pollan argues that “when food is abundant and
cheap, people will eat more of it and get fat.” He goes on to point out that since the 1970s, people have
increased their calorie intake and that those extra calories are stored in the body’s fat cells. It is no
coincidence that government policies created incentives for the cheap-food farm also during the 1970s.
In the 1820s, excess corn was turned into alcohol or fed to pork; today, it is most often fed to cattle or
turned into high-fructose corn syrup. Meanwhile, food companies have discovered that although people
will consume a standard number of servings, they can be made to eat more food if the size of the serving
is larger. In this way, America has overcome the fixed stomach that limits consumption.
Pollan points out that people have naturally evolved to eat sweet and fatty foods because they contain
the most energy. However, in contemporary America, the food that contains high-fructose corn syrup is
the cheapest way to obtain calories. Pollan notes it is more expensive to get a day’s worth of calories
from carrots and whole foods than it is from soft drinks or chips. However, those foods are cheap
because they are made from America’s mountain of cheap corn. Pollan concludes:
While the surgeon general is raising alarms over the epidemic of obesity, the president is
signing farm bills designed to keep the river of cheap corn flowing, guaranteeing that the
cheapest calories in the supermarket will continue to be the unhealthiest.
It seems that one of the most important dilemmas that the American omnivore faces is escaping from the
republic of fat.
Chapter 7 Summary
“The Meal” concludes the first part of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, in which Pollan attempts to trace what
he calls the industrial food chain. Having discovered how ubiquitous corn has become in America,
Pollan acknowledges that he could have eaten almost any meal to finish his investigation. However, he
ultimately chose to take his wife and son out to McDonald’s, where they each ordered individual meals.
Although his wife objects to wasting a meal by eating fast food, Pollan’s son quickly shares that
McDonald’s now serves salads. Pollan’s son is fulfilling a marketing strategy in which a child is able to
“deny the denier” of fast food by pointing out that there are more healthful options like salads.
At the drive-through window, Pollan receives a handout titled “A Full Serving of Nutrition Facts:
Choose the Best Meal for You.” He discovers that one of the ingredients (dimethylpolysiloxene) is a
suspected carcinogen. Pollan considers whether Chicken McNuggets taste like chicken and realizes that
almost all fast food simply tastes like fast food. This leads him to speculate how much corn was used to
make his family’s meal, and he decides to have a meal tested using a spectrometer. Pollan lists his meal
“by order of diminishing corniness”: soda has the most corn, followed by the milk shake, the salad
dressing, the chicken nuggets, the cheeseburger, and finally the French fries.
Pollan explains that from the point of view of the agribusiness, the corn-fed industrial food chain allows
corporations to increase profits faster than the American population expands. For consumers from the
“lower rungs of America’s economic ladder,” this food is cheap—but it also leads to obesity, type II
diabetes, and heart disease. Ecologically, the industrial food chain requires a great deal of energy to
continue running because it relies not only on solar energy but also on fossil fuels. Although the corn
plant itself is more abundant than ever before, American corn farmers exist only by government subsidy.
Pollan concludes:
You have to wonder why we Americans don’t worship this plant as fervently as the Aztecs;
like they once did, we make extraordinary sacrifices to it.
Ultimately, the Pollan family’s meal added up to over four thousand calories, far more than they
naturally require for lunch. Although many people may view fast food as a comfort food or as a food
that recalls their childhood, Pollan finds that his family had finished eating (while in the car) in less than
ten minutes. Ironically, it seems that perhaps the food is consumed as quickly as it is made. Pollan
suggests that the speed of consumption indicates that it is not worth savoring.
Chapter 8 Summary
In “All Flesh Is Grass,” Michael Pollan moves on from his investigation of America’s industrial food
chain and looks into alternative models of producing food. He expects to look into the recent focus on
“organic” food, one of the most rapidly expanding product lines in America’s supermarket. Instead,
Pollan finds himself looking into Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm in Virginia.
Salatin does not label his food “organic”; he argues that organic food has become another form of
industrial produce that ships food from one region to another. Salatin’s Polyface Farm is a mixed farm
that is founded on grass rather than corn. Salatin’s cattle graze (and fertilize) the grass. Afterward, his
chickens set to work, eating grass as well as parasites from the cattle manure. This allows Salatin to
produce healthy cattle without relying on chemicals and antibiotics. The grass is also harvested for hay.
This is why, although he raises cattle, chickens, pork, rabbits, and turkeys, Salatin considers himself a
“grass farmer.” Grass is at the root of everything he does, converting energy from the sun. This energy is
the basis of Polyface Farm’s pastoral food chain.
This system of farming is organized around what Pollan calls a “natural model.” In nature, grasslands
coevolved with grazers like cattle, whose grazing was followed by birds. The grasslands rely on these
herbivores to keep shrubs and forests from encroaching on their territory. Pollan notes that the industrial
model robs the topsoil, but Salatin’s model enriches the soil. It seems to be sustainable in a way that
industrial models and global markets will not allow.
Pollan takes the time to emphasize how different Salatin’s model of farming is from the industrial model
on which George Naylor relies. Polyface is pastoral, not industrial; it relies on perennial grasses rather
than annual crops; its ecosystem is a polyculture, not a monoculture; it relies on solar energy rather than
fossil fuels. Salatin’s food is sold locally as well—so much so that he refused to FedEx Pollan any of his
food. Consequently, Pollan finds himself moving hay bales on Salatin’s Virginia farm to study Polyface
Farm, but his search does not end there.
Salatin’s farm, as well as his disdain for foods marketed as organic, leads Pollan on the next leg of his
quest to map out America’s food chains. According to Salatin, most organic farms ironically fit more
closely into the industrial model of produce, shipping products around the country to feed supermarkets
and fast food chains. Pollan concludes the chapter determined to find out whether industrial organic is
indeed a contradiction.
Chapter 9 Summary
In “Big Organic,” Pollan considers whether an organic microwavable TV dinner is a contradiction of

terms. Once again, Pollan has returned to the supermarket, this time to a Whole Foods market. On the
labels of food there, Pollan repeatedly finds pastoral agricultural imagery that features red barns, lush
pastures, and a return to a past utopian agriculture in defiance of the industrial food chain. In many
ways, the pastoral narrative represents the ideals of the organic foods movement.
Pollan traces the ideals of organic agriculture back to the nineteenth century and the thinking of Sir
Albert Howard, who criticized the scientific breakthroughs of Baron Justus von Liebig. Liebig found
that soil fertility was in essence nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. This breakthrough simplified the
biological processes found in humus, or the decaying plant matter that adds nutrients to soil, and made it
possible to industrialize agriculture. Howard and his followers predicted and continue to argue that this
simplification inhibits the creation of healthful food.
What Pollan finds when he visits California’s organic farms does not live up to the pastoral ideal.
Pesticides and chemicals are not used, which Pollan acknowledges is a fantastic achievement, but more
idealistic farmers argue that this is merely “input substitution.” The farms are not sustainable: they still
require nonsynthetic fertilizer to be shipped in. Rather than using herbicides to control weeds, industrial
organic farms increase tilling. Finally, the food that organic farms produce still consume a substantial
amount of fossil fuels, particularly when it comes to transporting organic lettuce from California to New
York or organic asparagus from Argentina to the United States of America. Perhaps the most daunting
weakness of the industrial organic model is its continued reliance on monocultures because they are so
susceptible to disease, particularly industrial organic meat, which continues to concentrate populations
of animals but is prohibited from using antibiotics.
Studies find that the polycultural agriculture found on more idealistically organic small farms produces
better yields than both conventional and organic monoculture farms, but supermarkets resist buying
from a variety of small farms because it is not cost efficient. After examining the transformation of
several organic farms that formed during the 1960s, Pollan found that the farms that survived into the
1990s tended to embrace the industrial model because it was the only way they could produce enough
food to stock supermarket shelves.
Although organic agriculture as it currently exists fails to live up to its ideals in many ways, the
movement has had a positive effect on agriculture. It has raised standards and has prevented many
chemicals from being put into the soil. On the other hand, it is not sustainable. It is clear that the
agricultural standard can still be raised higher, as it is for farmers like Joel Salatin.
Chapter 10 Summary
In “Grass,” Michael Pollan expands on the mechanics of Joel Salatin’s grass farm. Pollan explains that
for many Americans, grass exists as an abstract concept, little more than a green carpet. However, he
explains that there is more to grass than most Americans realize. For Joel Salatin, his entire farm starts
with grass. Salatin refers to a blade of grass as a “photovoltaic panel” that converts sunlight into energy.
Pollan explains that humans are unusual among omnivores because we cannot digest grass. Cattle, on
the other hand, can digest grass perfectly.
Life on the Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm is perhaps best described as “alternative.” In many ways,
Salatin’s idea of grass farming has been imported from New Zealand, particularly through Allan
Nation’s magazine, Stockman Grass Farmer. Farmers like Salatin are engaged in “management-
intensive grazing,” or “rotational grazing.” Every day, Joel inspects his grass to see whether it is ready
for the cattle to move on to it. If it is, Joel moves his cattle by using a portable electric fence. Following
this system, Salatin does not participate in the overgrazing that distinguishes the ranching throughout
much of the rest of America. Furthermore, Salatin has drastically improved his grass’s productivity well
above the national average. Pollan cautions his audience from interpreting this as a traditional form of
agriculture. Salatin’s operation relies on complex and sophisticated information-age expertise, and
Salatin prefers to characterize Polyface Farm as a “postindustrial enterprise.”
However, the food chain that Polyface Farm follows is simpler than the industrial food chain is. The
industrial food chain relies on fossil energy, often relies on synthetic chemicals, and certainly relies on
corn subsidies to provide cheap feed. The benefit of this system is that it provides a predictable and
consistently produced product. However, the costs of this system are more difficult to identify. Although
a fast food hamburger might cost ninety-nine cents, Pollan points out this system of accounting fails to
factor in the costs of farm subsidies, health care costs, and ecological costs. (Pollan also points out that
concentrated animal feeding operations have not been made to obey clean air and water laws.) All of
these costs drain tax dollars. Pollan goes on to point out that Polyface Farm actually produces more
energy than a corn crop does, especially because cattle and other livestock use an entire blade of grass,
but corn operations only use kernels.
Joel Salatin’s father, William, started Polyface Farm. William originally tried farming in Venezuela but
was forced to flee the country after the coup in 1959. When he returned to America, he bought
exhausted land that had been all but destroyed by industrial agriculture, particularly the growing of
crops on lands unsuited to grain farming. In the meantime, William made a living as an accountant. By
the time Joel returned home from university, the soil had begun to recover and Joel continued to farm in
a way that would enrich the soil and, by extension, his grass farm’s food chain.
Chapter 11 Summary
In “The Animals: Practicing Complexity,” Pollan continues to document Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm.
Pollan is consistently struck by the complexity of Salatin’s agricultural practice, and he contrasts it with
the precariously simple systems found in industrial farming. Throughout the chapter, Pollan struggles to
discuss aspects of Salatin’s farm in isolation—only to repeatedly discover that the farm operates as a
whole.
Perhaps the most important concept in “The Animals” is the “holon,” which is borrowed from Arthur
Koestler’s The Ghost in the Machine. Pollan defines a holon as
an entity that from one perspective appears a self-contained whole, and from another a
dependent part. A body organ like the liver is a holon.
On Salatin’s farm, everything operates on more than one level. For example, the grass is used to feed
cattle, which fertilize the ground with their manure. Salatin uses chickens to peck at the insects within
the cattle manure, which prevents pests and disease from spreading on the farm. In the pig barn, manure
is covered with wood chips and corn, which forms compost that can be spread the following spring.
Salatin credits the heat of the compost with keeping the pigs warm in the winter. The farm has a woodlot
on its north-facing slopes, which Salatin admits is difficult to account for in a ledger. However, it
provides a habitat for birds, which consume pests; it provides woodchips for compost; and it prevents
erosion and allows ponds to form. In Salatin’s farm, nothing is taken for granted and most parts of the
farm serve several purposes, which allow the land to outproduce monocultures.
In contrast, the fence-to-fence sowing promoted by the United States Department of Agriculture had
little time for trees. Pollan points out that this model of agriculture has numerous problems. It promotes
monocultures, which are prone to disease. Concentrated animal feeding operations may seem efficient
for the supermarket because managers can buy from a single source but they are also susceptible to
disease, particularly the organic operations that cannot use antibiotics. Pollan believes that agriculture
has been robbed of its traditional wisdom and intelligence. Joel Salatin has to find very clever solutions
to his problems, but most farmers wait for solutions to be bottled and sold to them. Salatin points out
that most schools encourage the strongest rural students to leave their farms, and the result is that low-
scoring students tend to stay on the farms. He concludes, “It’s a foolish culture that entrusts its food
supply to simpletons.”
Chapter 12 Summary
In “Slaughter: In a Glass Abattoir,” Pollan and Salatin process broiler chickens. Specifically, several
hundred chickens are “killed, scalded, plucked, and eviscerated.” As in previous chapters, Pollan
explores first hand what it is like to participate in this part of agriculture, though he admits that it is not
easy for him. He explores the emotional and ethical implications of slaughter, but he is primarily
interested in contrasting how Salatin’s abattoir differs from an industrial slaughterhouse.
In the industrial food chain, Pollan notes, animals are killed behind closed doors and high walls. At
Polyface Farm, animals are killed in the open air. Although Salatin would prefer to butcher all of his
livestock himself, farmers are only able to process a limited number of birds on their farms. The
slaughter process is draining and often gruesome for Pollan (who participates in killing, eviscerating,
and boiling the chickens), but Salatin explains that his preference to slaughter his livestock is an
extension of his worldview. However, Salatin is now fighting for the right to continue his open-air
abattoir.
Government regulations regarding slaughter are designed to accommodate centralized abattoirs. For
example, it is mandated that the walls be cleaned on a regular basis and that there be a separate
washroom for the federal inspector. However, there are no walls and there are no washrooms at
Polyface’s abattoir. Contrary to what one might expect, Salatin reports that he has had his chickens
tested for bacteria against those of the industrial abattoir— and his birds have lower levels. Salatin
concludes that this is because the open air and the sunlight control act as a disinfectant. Salatin also
points out that concentrated agriculture is what allows for the rampant spread of bacteria, which is why
there are so many regulations for industrial slaughterhouses. Ironically, the one regulation missing is an
acceptable level of bacteria within chicken. There is no standard for bacteria levels; there is only a
standard for the process of slaughter. Even if there were a standard, Pollan reveals that the United States
Department of Agriculture cannot instigate a recall of slaughtered meat anyway.
The differences between Salatin’s process and the industrial process of slaughter continue. Although
Pollan feels squeamish while killing chickens, he finds that he quickly grows accustomed to it, to the
point that it becomes routine, and he notes that this rapid ambivalence is nearly as disturbing as killing
the chickens. Salatin reports that slaughter is unpleasant, but it is manageable to do once in a while. In
contrast, in industrial farms, people spend their entire workweek slaughtering animals. Pollan reports
that it is “not uncommon for full-time slaughterhouse workers to become sadistic.” Although the
inspectors may be baffled by Salatin’s operation, Polyface Farms has many customers who prefer to buy
their meat from a trusted, local source. There are no walls, so these consumers are free to inspect their
animals in as much detail as they would like, unlike the inherent nature of concealment in abattoirs that
conform to federal mandates. Ecologically, Salatin’s alternative system again triumphs over the
industrial system because the remains of the meat are composted.
Chapter 13 Summary
In “The Market: Greetings From the Non-Barcode People,” Pollan examines how Joel Salatin sells his
food and, to a lesser extent, Salatin’s vision of agriculture. Although Salatin at times sounds like a
revolutionary to Pollan, particularly when he sends missives to his customers with statements like
“greetings from the non-Barcode people,” the author comes to view Salatin as a reformer. If the system
were reformed, what would it end up looking like?
Polyface Farm’s food costs more than food sold at a supermarket. However, Salatin argues that it is
actually cheaper because it is produced without subsidies and is ecologically sustainable in a way that
the industrial food is not. When Pollan examines how Salatin’s food is sold, he finds that consumers
have a host of reasons for electing to buy from an alternative food chain. Some find that Salatin’s
chicken tastes better and many praise his eggs. In fact, when Joel’s brother sells eggs to local
restaurants, he often showcases the eggs to make his sale. Salatin insists that his buyers are willing to
pay for quality, which it seems many people have stopped considering due to the standardization of
food. Although the industrial food chain (and its standardized products) rules the supermarket, Pollan
finds that many alternative farmers are selling their produce to local restaurants, which are in turn
promoting their local growers. Pollan also finds that farmers’ markets are on the rise, though they are
Salatin’s least profitable market.
In “The Market,” Pollan makes a distinction between industrial farming and “artisanal” farming and
questions whether the two models can be merged. For Salatin, they are antithetical. The artisan farmer’s
model must operate on the local market to maintain a relationship with the customer. Furthermore, it
seems impossible to increase the scale of an artisan farmer’s operation. However, is it likely that the
artisan’s model will take over the industrial model? Pollan thinks not, in part because it cannot be scaled
to fit a larger model. Pollan points to the rise of the global economy and international trade. All of the
questions of production and value are hidden behind a barcode.
Still, a growing number of people are willing to engage in this alternative food chain, a process that
Salatin understands is about opting out of the industrial system. Pollan notes that the Internet helps like-
minded groups of people produce their own alternative food chains and buying agreements. It is unlikely
that artisanal farming will replace the industrial food chain, but Pollan thinks there is potential for these
like-minded consumers and producers to form “tribes.” He notes that the movement away from a single
model of production is arguably healthier and more resistant to problems, just as a polyculture tends to
be healthier than a monoculture.
Chapter 14 Summary
“The Meal: Grass Fed” is the final chapter in which Michael Pollan explores the pastoral food chain. In
the first section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan examined the industrial food chain. Although he
discovered that he could have eaten industrial food based on the subsidized corn chain almost anywhere,
Pollan chose to take his wife and son to a McDonald’s drive-through. The contrast between Pollan’s
fast-food meal and his pastoral meal is striking and promotes the alternative food chain that Salatin’s
Polyface Farm is trying to create.
After a week at Polyface Farm, Pollan recalls Salatin’s refusal to FedEx a steak from Virginia to
California. The keystone of Salatin’s pastoral food chain is the relationships that people are able to form
locally. Thus, Pollan elects to eat with close friends who live near the Salatin farm. As compensation for
his week helping around the farm, Joel gives Pollan a Polyface chicken and eggs. Ironically, Pollan
admits that he would have preferred to not eat chicken after so recently participating in their slaughter,
but he relents, realizing that chickens are the meat in season at this time.
As Pollan shops for his meal, he demonstrates a different set of values from those he usually uses to
make decisions. He elects to buy wine that is expensive, inferring from the price that it will be a quality
vintage. He chooses his vegetables based on their seasonality and whether they were grown locally. In
particular, Pollan is aware that he has some of Salatin’s celebrated eggs, and he elects to make a
chocolate soufflé for dessert. The process of making the meal is very conscientious and planned out in
detail, and it is based on values that extend beyond price and quantity.
Pollan resists boasting but cannot hide his preference for the pastoral meal over the one he ate at the end
of the industrial food chain. When Pollan and his family eat McDonald’s in the car, it takes them less
than ten minutes to finish the meal, suggesting that there is little in it to be enjoyed. When Pollan eats
with his friends, he finds that at first they eat the food without talking because it is delectable. They go
on to have a conversation. The atmosphere is not based on efficiency but on the warmth of friendship
and the quality of food. Pollan’s soufflé turns out well, and he finds himself able to overcome his
concerns about the chicken. The entire meal reminds him of the sustainable circle of Joel Salatin’s
alternative farm.
Chapter 15 Summary
In “The Forager,” Michael Pollan turns to his third food chain, which he dubs “personal.” Having
explored the industrial and pastoral food chains, Pollan now sets his sights on feeding himself. He
intends to eat from three sources of food: animal, vegetable, and fungi. Pollan admits that he is largely
helpless to feed himself from any of these food groups. Although he has been a gardener for most of his
life, he has recently moved from New England to California and does now know gardening in his new
environment. Pollan remains determined to complete his quest.
Of the three food chains Pollan has so far explored, he admits that the personal is by far the least
practical. He points out that although it is thought that hunter-gatherers spent only seventeen hours each
week collecting food, they quickly exhausted their supply of megafauna and turned to agriculture.
Ironically, this reliance on crops led to lower health; Pollan points out only in the past few centuries
have people begun to reach the same levels of health and fitness they had in hunter-gatherer societies.
Ultimately, Pollan acknowledges the futility of the personal chain as a means of practically feeding
society, but he still feels that it will be a didactic experience.
Because he does not know very much about California’s flora and fauna—not to mention the fungi—
Pollan once again seeks out a guide. His “forager Virgil” turns out to be Angelo Garro. Garro was born
in Sicily before following a woman to Canada and then following a different woman to San Francisco.
There he established himself as a man whose life revolved around food. In fact, Pollan admits that he
met Garro at the sorts of dinners for which both men’s reputations as food experts would draw
invitations. Garro agrees to be Pollan’s guide but informs him that he will have to get a hunter’s license.
Pollan includes a great deal of humor throughout “The Forager.” He finds that
they’ll sell a high-powered rifle to just about anybody in California, but it’s against the law
to aim the thing at an animal without first enduring a fourteen-hour class and a one-
hundred-question multiple-choice exam.
After two months of preparation, Pollan succeeds in obtaining his license. Over this period, Pollan
begins to find that his walks through the wild have changed and that he begins to view nature as a
gigantic restaurant. Although he finds himself picking mushrooms, he is too careful to actually eat them,
fearing that they might be poisonous. He concludes that this anxiety “impales” him on “the horns of the
omnivore’s dilemma.”
Chapter 16 Summary
In “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” Pollan explores the meaning of the book’s title and reasons why
Americans struggle to make healthful food choices. Although it is in the best interests of food
corporations to market food so it will capture a greater share of the consumer’s hunger, Pollan suggests
that Americans are especially susceptible to “food faddism.” Unlike other cultures, Americans lack a
culture of food to help them navigate the omnivore’s dilemma.
Pollan explains that the curse of the omnivore is also its strength. An omnivore can eat nearly anything,
but
when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he’s pretty much on his
own.
Unlike people, a monarch butterfly can only eat milkweed, which may sound dull but has the benefit of
being reliably safe. Omnivores like humans and rats are required to constantly choose what to eat.
Pollan cites studies by Paul Rozin that find that rats test food by eating a small amount and then waiting
to see whether it produces a harmful effect, such as a stomachache. It is difficult to poison rats because
they are capable of remembering which foods are poisonous. As omnivores, whenever people encounter
a new food, they face two conflicting desires: neophobia, a necessary fear of the new, and neophilia, a
necessary love of the new.
To some extent, taste buds help people detect whether a plant is nutritious or toxic. Foods that taste
bitter are often toxic, for example, but not always. Pollan points out aspirin is made from salicylic acid
in willows. Humans are forced to rely on memory and communication to overcome the toxins that plants
create to defend themselves from predators. Pollan points out that our ability to cook allowed us to
access more plants and meat as food. For example, the cassava produces cyanide, but it can be eaten if
cooked. Thus, some anthropologists have suggested that cooking is one of the most important tools that
allowed the human brain to evolve.
However, perhaps the most reliable test of what to eat and what not to eat is found in a nation’s culture
of food. For example, when Asians ferment soy, they are actually making it more nutritious. Americans
do not have a stable culinary tradition, and Pollan suggests that their diet-related health problems are the
consequence. Ironically, many American responses to this lack of tradition have produced food fads that
led people to turn their back on carbohydrates or to chew their food one hundred times. Pollan cites the
“French paradox,” in which the French can be found eating foods that are ostensibly unhealthful, such as
wine, cheese, and chocolate, yet as a nation the French remain healthier than Americans. Pollan explains
that the French have a culinary tradition that allows them to eat these foods without excess. In contrast,
America’s “national eating disorder” leads them to make knee-jerk reactions that often prove harmful.
Today, it seems that the market benefits from eroding cultural traditions, and Pollen suggests that the
family meal is the latest victim: for many American families, it has been replaced by a different, highly
processed, microwavable meal for each family member.
Chapter 17 Summary
In “The Ethics of Eating Animals,” Pollan considers the moral act that he is about to engage in as part of
his exploration of the personal food chain. While eating a rib-eye steak, Pollan reads Peter Singer’s
Animal Liberation, which calls for people to stop eating meat. Pollan opens the chapter prepared to
consider that Singer has a strong argument and that
eating meat has become morally problematic, at least for people who take the trouble to
think about it.
People often set humans aside from the rest of the animal kingdom because of their intelligence.
However, Singer would point out that chimpanzees are often more intelligent than a variety of humans,
including infants and the mentally handicapped. Singer would have his audience consider the suffering
of the animal rather than the intelligence, and it is difficult to deny that animals suffer before they are
eaten.
Consequently, Pollan decides to become a vegetarian. He approaches the subject with some humor when
he says,
I will now burden you with my obligatory compromises and ethical distinctions.
Burdening others is one aspect of vegetarianism that Pollan finds particularly irritating, and he finds that
he feels like a bad guest because he requires special food while visiting friends. He also finds that
vegetarianism requires a great deal of careful planning before eating. Perhaps Pollan’s biggest objection
to vegetarian eating is not ethical so much as cultural when he shares that
healthy and virtuous as I may feel these days, I also feel alienated from traditions I value.
All of this leads Pollan to further explore what eating meat really means.
Pollan finds that philosophers like Daniel Dennett have begun to draw attention to the nature of animal
suffering by suggesting that it may occur on a different order of magnitude than it does for people. For
example, a rhesus monkey can have one of its testicles bitten off while competing for a mate only to go
on mating the following day. It seems that a great deal of the discussion of animal rights may be based
upon anthropomorphic arguments that are based on distance from animals. However, Pollan agrees that
there is something very wrong with the way concentrated animal feeding operations work. These
slaughterhouses view animals as “production units” and little else. Pollan points out that the capitalist
system reinterprets suffering as “stress” and explains that the industry has begun to respond to this by
“simply engineering the ‘stress gene’ out of pigs and chickens.” Is there a system that works differently?
Once again, Pollan returns to Polyface Farm as an alternative. There, chickens and other animals are
allowed to live out what Aristotle calls their “characteristic form of life.” Furthermore, he feels that if
we are going to concern ourselves with the suffering of animals, we should also concern ourselves with
their happiness. At Polyface Farms, animals are happy—in Pollan's opinion, happier than they would be
in the wild. Pollan goes on to point out the moral interpretation of the relationship between humanity
and nonhuman animals is a difficult fit, and might more accurately be understood in terms of
coevolutionary development. In other words, the corn population has exploded because of its
relationship with humanity. Dogs number in the millions while wolf populations have shrunk. For
animal rightists, predation is a problem that, Pollan feels, reveals an urban bias based on disconnection
from animals.
Pollan suggests that vegetarians feel they are harming fewer animals by eating vegetables. He points out
that vegetarians may not realize that their grain is produced on a farm with harvesters that kill a
multitude of creatures. On the other hand, many animals benefit from their relationship with humans,
particularly through “good farms” like Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm. For Pollan, the most disconcerting
aspect of meat eating remains the concentrated feedlot with its opaque walls. If this were ended, it might
result in our eating animals “with the consciousness, ceremony, and respect they deserve.”
Chapter 18 Summary
In “Hunting: The Meat,” Pollan engages in what might be the most difficult part of his investigation into
the American food chains. While working at Polyface Farm, Pollan was reluctant to slaughter a chicken.
After a while, Pollan was shocked to find that he became ambivalent to the process because it became
routine work. Now Pollan is faced with the fact that he is about to enter the wilderness to shoot a wild
animal to feed himself. Although he weighed the ethical considerations of eating meat in the previous
chapter, Pollan is surprised by his reaction to hunting.
Pollan employs a great deal of humor at his own expense while recounting his hunting adventure.
Perhaps the first example is when he catches himself writing “hunter porn.” Pollan confesses that he has
always viewed the works of bearded American hunters like Ernest Hemingway with disdain. However,
once he enters the bush to hunt for boars, he is surprised by the effect the process has on him. He finds
that his senses are enhanced and he experiences “hunter’s eye,” a condition in which he finds that he can
suddenly see much farther than usual.
During his first morning of hunting, Pollan and his guide, Angelo Garro, find nothing. In the afternoon,
he and Garro spot a group of boars. Pollan elects not to fire first because his gun is not loaded. Garro
shoots a boar, but at the end of the day Pollan has still not shot a boar. He considers ending his project
but finds that every time he tells the story of his hunt, his audience is disappointed that he did not
actually kill a boar. So he returns to the woods with Garro.
In his second hunt, Pollan successfully kills a boar, and he is amazed by the adrenaline rush he feels.
However, as time passes, he comes to feel conflicted. Many hunting stories end with the killing of the
animal as climax. Pollan goes on to explain the processes of skinning the boar and removing the organs.
It is gruesome, and Pollan finds himself amazed that Garro continues to talk about food while preparing
the boar. After he has returned home, Garro sends Pollan a photo of him with the carcass. Pollan looks at
himself, the grinning hunter standing over his kill, and is appalled at himself. Over time, though, he
comes to view his hunt as one part of a larger ecological cycle that connects humans to the sun.
Chapter 19 Summary
In “Gathering: The Fungi,” Michael Pollan continues his exploration of the personal food chain, in
which he attempts to prepare a meal made from ingredients he has directly and independently collected.
Pollan has already shared his hunting experiences, and he now sets out into the forest to collect
mushrooms. Although Pollan is a gardener, he discovers that there are many surprising differences
between gardening and mushroom gathering. He also shares the unique characteristics of mushrooms.
A gardener works with domesticated species and has a considerable amount of control over the garden,
so it is not surprising that gardeners tend to view their gardens as their own. Pollan points out that the
pests come to be viewed as “Others.” In other words, Pollan concludes, gardening is steeped in dualism.
However, Pollan admits that he never recognized these gardening attitudes until he went mushroom
hunting.
Mushroom hunting involves a great deal of mystery. For example, it is difficult to find mushrooms, and
mycophiles (lovers of mushrooms) must develop an eye for finding fungus—or “get their eyes on”—
before they will be able to worry about identification. In fact, finding mushrooms can be so difficult that
most mushroom hunters prefer to keep their mushroom locations a secret. Pollan admits that he
struggled to find a guide before Angelo Gallo agreed to take him along on a hunt for chanterelles.
Mushrooms not only grow in hidden places but are, themselves, mysterious. Pollan points out that
scientists know relatively little about mushrooms. Chanterelles are a mycorrhizal species, which means
that they live with the roots of plants. Beyond that, little is known. Pollan explains that fungi are difficult
to observe because
what we call a mushroom is only the tip of the iceberg of a much bigger and essentially
invisible organism that lives most of its life underground.
Most of the organism exists in the soil at a microscopic scale. Although some mushrooms can be
cultivated, Pollan points out that the choicest mushrooms are nearly impossible to cultivate. The most
amusing illustration of the mystery that surrounds mushrooms may be that one thinker speculated that
mushrooms grew from lunar energy.
Pollan argues that mushrooms represent the omnivore’s dilemma of choosing between trying new food
and fearing new food. In contrast to Pollan’s earlier chanterelle experience, in which he could not bring
himself to eat a chanterelle because he worried that it would kill him, Pollan finds that he is now able to
eat his chanterelles because Gallo guided him through the process. By the end of the chapter, Pollan
completes two successful expeditions to gather mushrooms and is ready to prepare his final meal.
Chapter 20 Summary
Pollan is the first to admit that “The Perfect Meal” sounds a little too smug for one’s own cooking.
However, he points out that by “perfect” he does not necessarily mean that his cooking was great.
Instead, Pollan explains over the course of the chapter how meaningful his final meal was, particularly
because of the amount of preparation it took. It also connects him to the ecology behind food.
In exploring the personal food chain, Pollan explains that he set out to make a meal he prepared from
scratch. Some of his goals were compromised. For example, although Pollan attempted to get salt from
the San Francisco Bay, he found it too toxic for consumption. His desire to serve abalone as an appetizer
also proved unrealistic because acquiring abalone is time and labor intensive and because it loses a great
deal of its flavor if not eaten fresh. Somewhat amusingly, Pollan explains that he did not end up even
cooking every aspect of the meal because Angelo Gallo agreed to prepare a couple dishes. However, in
other ways, Pollan’s final meal is indeed a perfect culmination of his goals in The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Pollan invites everyone involved in helping him prepare his personal food chain meal, from the people
who helped him hunt for mushrooms to the people with whom he went boar hunting. Pollan spends an
entire day cooking—after almost a week of preparation—and frets that because so many of his guests
are professional chefs that they will not be satisfied with his offering. However, as the guests begin to
arrive, Pollan finds that the conversation gives way to a warm atmosphere. After thanking his guests for
their contributions, Pollan is gratified to find that they are indeed enjoying the meal.
Perhaps the most perfect things about the meal are revealed when they are contrasted with Pollan’s
industrial food chain meal. Pollan admits that his personal food chain is hardly realistic, but he
maintains that it should draw his audience’s attention to how rarely people are so aware of the food
chains that feed them. Pollan can readily describe every step involved in preparing his personal meal,
from the conversion of sunlight into matter to the gathering and hunting to the cooking. He also
highlights the culture in cuisine, a culture that seems to be disappearing from American culture. For
Pollan, food should be understood as a means by which people connect with the world. He emphasizes
this in his concluding remark:
We eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we’re eating is never anything more or
less than the body of the world.

How Industrial Food Chains Impact Health

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04/06/2019 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Summary - eNotes.

Industrial Food Chain

Pastoral Food Chain

Personal Food Chain

In “Big Organic,” Pollan considers whether an organic microwavable TV dinner is a contradiction of

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