Review of Omnivore's Dilemma

I avoided this book for a while because I was expecting it to be a heavy and depressing read. Perhaps it was in spots, but Pollan's writing kept me entertained and upbeat throughout. His writing can be quite inventive and creative.

For example, Pollan writes of Joel Salatin's farm: "What had been cow manure and woodchips just a few weeks before now smelled as sweet and warm as the forest floor in summertime, a miracle of transubstantiation" (209).

Concerning Iowa, Pollan writes, "Iowa begins to look a little different when you think of its sprawling fields as cities of corn, the land, in its own way, settled as densely as Manhattan for the very same purpose: to maximize real estate values. . . . Though by any reasonable definition Iowa is a rural state, it is more thoroughly developed than many cities: A mere 2 percent of the state's land remains what it used to be" (38).

The Omnivore's Dilemma includes a brief discussion of animal rights, complete with email exchanges with animal rights philosopher Peter Singer. Pollan seems to critique vegan ethics in his observation that "the very existence of predation in nature, of animals eating animals, is the cause of much anguished hand-wringing in the animal right literature" (321). He points out that "one of the ironies of animal rights" is that "it asks us to acknowledge all we share with animals, and then to act toward them in a most unanimalistic way" (315). Pollan doesn't end this discussion with "do's" and "dont's", but he seems to suggest that killing animals to eat is permissible, but eating Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)-produced meat may not be.

Pollan succeeded in making this reader want to be more observant of and grateful for my food, and more supportive of CAFO alternatives.