The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (11)

Title: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Author: Michael Pollan
Genre: Non-Fiction

From my journal

I had been thinking on issues of food, farming, agribusiness, animal concerns and the social, economic, environmental, and culture impact of all three for a while and this book helped define some of my thoughts and beliefs and gave me a whole batch of new things to think about and seeds of belief that need to be defined. Clearly this book has given me many gifts.

Had I not already been thinking seriously about the food in my life (where it comes from, how it was produced, how it makes me feel physically and emotionally, how I feel about it, etc) I believe this book would have been truly life changing for me. Truthfully I think it will still be life changing because of things it brought into my field of vision, knowledge it taught me and things that it introduced me to that need more personal research on my part. However it didn't set me on this path, I was already there, but it has moved me significantly further down it. What is this path? For me it's the path to conscious eating. The path to knowing about my food as much as possible. Also though it's about support a certain kind of life, the life of the small American farmer, that I find worthy of supporting.

Some loose thoughts from my journal from several months ago

- It is important to me to support farming (small farms, family farms) as a viable way of life in American society. If paying more for my food would allow farmers to make a more comfortable and sucessful living I definitely would pay more for food.

- Though I do wish I could be vegetarian it is not a reasonable option for me. I don't like vegetables enough to give up meat completely without simply swapping fake meats as replacements. This would be harmful to my diet. I currently eat very little meat balanced with grainds, fruits and vegetables. Eating a healthy diet, one low in processed and fake foods is very important to me.

- The reason I wish I could be vegetarian is because I feel great compassion for animals and feel guilty that they must die to become my food. Not overly guilty though because, as objectively as I can, I believe that humans are at the top of the natural evolutionary food chain. Though I have no scientific evidence to support or dispute my feelings I do think that being part of this food chain is important. All things are connected and humans play their part. So while I don't feel extreme guilt over being part of a food chain that turns some animals into food I do feel extreme guilt, displeasure and anger over completely unnecessary suffering inflicted on the animals that eventually become food. An argument can be made of course that killing an animal for food is an unnecessary cause of suffering. I'll agree with the suffering but not the unnecessary part of that argument.

As I have formulated these opinions and stances it's become exceptionally clear that to be true to my values and beliefs then I must acknowledge that factory farming is something I am deeply opposed to. I think whenever possible I should choose food that was grown locally. Whenever I can I should choose meat that was raised and slaughtered humanely. This sounds easy enough but it is not so easy at all. But I feel it's worth the work.

Some quotes from The Omnivore's Dilemma that resonated with me deeply:

"It takes more than a calorie of fossil fuel energy to produce a calorie of food; before the advent of chemical fertilizer the Naylor farm produced more than two calories of food energy for every calorie of energy invested."
- Michael Pollan

"Just because we can ship organic lettuce from the Salinas Valley or organic cut flowers from Peru doesn't mean we should do it, not if we're really serious about energy and seasonality and bioregionalism."

"Part of the problem is, you've got a lot of D students left on the farm today."

"The guidance counselors encouraged all of the A students to leave home and go to college. There's been a tremendous brain drain in Rural America. Of course that suits Wall Street just fine; Wall Street is always trying to extract brain power and capital from the countryside. First they take the brightest bulbs off the farm and put them to work in Dilbert's cubicle, and then they go after the capital of the dimmer ones who stayed behind by selling them a bunch of gee-whiz solutions to their problems."

"It's a foolish culture that entrusts its food supply to simpletons."

"Frankly, any city person who doesn't think I deserve a white-collar salary as a farmer doesn't deserve my special food. Let them eat E. Coli."
- Joel Salatin
Polyface Farm

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.