Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

In preparation for starting Infinite Jest, I was committed to finishing Omnivore's Dilemma ("OD"). Laura and I had decided to have a long-distance book group on this book so we had been trading emails about different sections for the past several months. This was a good way for me to read a book - always get more out of discussing my reading with other people and Laura is an excellent corresponder with a smart point of view. I also enjoy reading more than one thing at a time and this became a good background process.

OD, like Pollan's In Defense of Food, exposes some of the unhealthy and illogical parts of our food production system. This book is structured in three main sections - the first covers the 'military-industrial complex" of food, following a single cow through the mass beef industry to a meal that ends at a McDonald's. The second section explores organic and sustainable eating. And the final section covers Pollan's experiences hunting and gathering all the ingredients for a single dinner he prepares.

I liked that Pollan went and experienced each of the types of food production first-hand, reporting and not just researching. While it did not have the same impact on me that IDOF did, OD was a good read.

In the first section, he covered the science and economics around corn production, including, I kid you not, a large section on 'corn sex'. He also covered a history of fertilizer and general efficiency in our food chain. The sections on the beef industry immediately reminded me of The Jungle.

Pollan fascinated me with his examination of the organic food industry. He drew a distinct line between organic and local, which really made me think about where my food comes from. He also presented a different model of running a farm that varies the vegetation and animals in different locations year to year, providing a long-term sustainable model that generates far more yield and far less waste than how we farm now.

I was a little more disappointed with the last section, where he hunts and gathers, finding it to be more condescending and self-aggrandizing than the rest of the book. That said, there were some good points about how hunting one's food can change one's relationship with eating. He also gave an extensive and weirdly fascinating background on mushrooms. But overall by the time I got to the meal he prepared I really found the premise to be kitchy and more about making his point than anything. His anecdotes were fun to read but I had kind of stopped learning by the end.

The two points he made in the (too-short) denouement was that there should be "transparency" in our food and he recognized that both McDonald's and his homegrown meal are outliers in how we can really eat. I agree with both of those and see them as reasonable conclusions to his book. I think that if I had not read IDOF first, this book would have had even more impact on me. That said, I'd recommend it to both readers of IDOF and those who have never read Michael Pollan.