Obesity

Review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma Review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma Have you ever thought about corn' Where does it come from' What can we do with' Well in the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a nonfiction book by Michael Pollan published in 2006, in which Pollan asks the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. As omnivores, we humans are faced with a wide variety of food choices, resulting in a dilemma. To find out about those choices, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us, industrial food, organic food, and food we forage ourselves, from the source to a final meal, and in the process writes an account of the American way of eating. Pollan talks all about it in part I: Industrial/Corn (P. 15-119) chapters 1, 2 and 3. In these three chapters we will review “The Planet”, “The Farm” and “The Elevators”. Pollan begins with an exploration of the food-production system from which the vast majority of American meals are derived. This industrial food chain is largely based on corn, whether it is eaten directly, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose, often in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, and ethanol. Pollan discusses how the corn plant came to dominate the American diet through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors. He visits George Naylor's corn farm in Iowa to learn more about those factors. The role of petroleum in the cultivation and transportation of the American food supply is also discussed. In “The Farm,” 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 years ago. Review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma Pollan first investigates the industrial food chain. He starts at the supermarket, which ostensibly offers a varied 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. 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 and it’s impossible to track it down to last destination. In the conclusion in 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' References The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, (2006).