The Omnivore's Dilemma

In the early pages of this book, the author warns the reader that if you don't want your relationship with food challenged, you shouldn't read on. It's true. The book definitely challenged me, shook me up a bit, but in a good way.

First off, I didn't know what an omnivore was. Now I know that it's an animal that can eat many things. Most animals are specialists: cows eat grass, koala's eat eucalyptus, etc. Being omnivores has provided our species with an obvious competitive advantage over the course of millenia. However, today in the U.S., with so much cheap, high calorie food available, and without a stable food culture telling us what and how to eat, the author argues convincingly that omnivorousness has become a curse. Take the current obesity epidemic in the U.S. as a prime example.

The book is written in four parts, each culminating with a meal. The first is devoted to the industrial agricultural complex in the U.S., and specifically focuses on corn, which is massively subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer. Because of this, corn products are extremely cheap and so are used everywhere: cereals, preservatives, fructose (sugar), and for fattening livestock for slaughter, to name a few. Moreover, industrial corn is grown in monoculture, which requires large amounts of petrochemical fertilizer, resulting in environmental degradation. After reading this part of the book, the reader is left with the impression that our mainstream food production system in the U.S. is pretty messed up.

Part two of the book is devoted to 'industrial organic'. The main example here for me -- and which is also in the book -- is the organic lettuce Jen (my wife) always buys at Costco, and also, Cascadian Farms products. Much of the products at Whole Foods, or the Good Food Store here in Missoula, fall into the industrial organic category. Industrial organic farms are better than non-organic in that they avoid chemical fertilizers, among other things, but they employ the same sort of large-scale, fossil fuel intensive mono-culture practices. Also, labels like 'free range chickens' are misnomers in that although the door to the chicken shed might be left open, the chickens never leave. So after this part of the book, the reader is left with the notion that industrial organic is better, but it's still industrial, and hence far from perfect. As the Cascadian Farms CEO (and founder) says, cynically, "eventually everything morphs into the way things are."

Part three of the book focuses on 'the new organic', which is represented by the sustainable, local farm. For this, the author visited a farm in West Virginia that was completely sustainable. For example, the cows mowed (ate) the grass, and then the chickens followed and picked the cow pies for grubs and further fertilized the grass, which grows abundantly. The farmer sold the chickens, their eggs, and the cows (and also pigs) for food. Everything thrived and was in near-perfect balance. Farms like this are utopian in nature, lying far from the mainstream, and so it might not be a surprise that the farmer was zealous and highly idealistic. Although such places are important as examples of what is possible, and the food from such farms is as good as it gets, this 'otherness' turned me off a bit. Real change reaches the masses, not just the select few on the mountain top.

And finally, in part four, the author hunted and gathered a meal. He killed a wild pig in Northern California, gathered wild mushrooms in the Sierras, made his own salt, dived for abalone, harvested wild yeast from the air. He was clearly most proud of this meal. But I have to say that the amount of time (which equals money for most) and fossil fuel expended for this meal would certainly rival any from the industrial chain. Still, it made me want to take up hunting, gathering mushrooms, and capturing yeast for baking bread from the air.

The book was good. It challenged me and made me want to be better. Also, I feel like I know more about where my food comes from now, which disturbed me, but I'm thankful for it. It made me want to buy a freezer, local meat and vegetables, and start hunting. On the other hand, it was written from a place of deep privilege. The author is one of the few who could afford all of the above, and though he tried to take an objective stance, his prejudices were clear: the purer the mode of procuring the food, the better. Whereas it seems to me the 'best' is not the 'purest', but rather what balances ideals with what can realistically impact the most people and the world.