The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

This book contains no recipes.

Notes about this book

  • Eat Your Books

    Read Gastronomy's review of this book.

  • wester on April 01, 2010

    This book will change the way you look at your food. Definitely. A highly important book, and very readable. Not a cookbook, though.

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Reviews about this book

  • Amateur Gourmet

    ...this is an essential book, a book that’ll change your life and help make the world a better place. You may not agree with every part (...) but you will be woken up - shocked awake, really...

    Full review

  • Amateur Gourmet

    ...And as wholesome as that all sounds, this book–which may be the most important book written about food in the last decade (or more)–also happens to be a very fun read.

    Full review
  • ISBN 10 0143038583
  • ISBN 13 9780143038580
  • Published Aug 27 2007
  • Format Paperback
  • Page Count 480
  • Language English
  • Countries United States
  • Publisher Penguin

Publishers Text

The bestselling author of The Botany of Desire explores the ecology of eating to unveil why we consume what we consume in the twenty-first century

What should we have for dinner? To one degree or another this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't-which mushrooms should be avoided, for example, and which berries we can enjoy. Today, as America confronts what can only be described as a national eating disorder, the omnivore's dilemma has returned with an atavistic vengeance. The cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet has thrown us back on a bewildering landscape where we once again have to worry about which of those tasty-looking morsels might kill us. At the same time we're realizing that our food choices also have profound implications for the health of our environment. The Omnivore's Dilemma is bestselling author Michael Pollan's brilliant and eye-opening exploration of these little-known but vitally important dimensions of eating in America.

Pollan has divided The Omnivore's Dilemma into three parts, one for each of the food chains that sustain us: industrialized food, alternative or organic food, and food people obtain by dint of their own hunting, gathering, or gardening. Pollan follows each food chain literally from the ground up to the table, emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the species we depend on. He concludes each section by sitting down to a meal--at McDonald's, at home with his family sharing a dinner from Whole Foods, and in a revolutionary beyond organic farm in Virginia. For each meal he traces the provenance of everything consumed, revealing the hidden components we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods reflects our environmental and biological inheritance.

We are indeed what we eat-and what we eat remakes the world. A society of voracious and increasingly confused omnivores, we are just beginning to recognize the profound consequences of the simplest everyday food choices, both for ourselves and for the natural world. The Omnivore's Dilemma is a long-overdue book and one that will become known for bringing a completely fresh perspective to a question as ordinary and yet momentous as What shall we have for dinner?

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