The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Considering the delicious variety of food products that are available for middle-class individuals, it is subject to discuss how people make personal preferences. This leads to the subject of where to purchase products from organic farms or foodstuff which are conventionally produced and marketed. The most perplexing ideology is the subject of consumer convenience and available fast foods. The author of the publication Michael Pollan addresses some of these issues in the book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” which illustrate that people can eat any foodstuff in existence of nature or can be manufactured in the laboratories but still faces anxiety on how to select what they want to feed on¹.

Michael Pollan illustrates every food chain which entails organic chain, hunting and gathering chain, alternative and industrial chain. In the quest to determine the origination and virtues of strategies for producing and consumption of food the author explores the subject extensively². Michael Pollan states “Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world — and what is to become of It.” in page 11; and provides emphasis on the association between the health of food products human consumes and individuals healthiness.

Michael Pollan in his automobile consumes a meal from McDonald’s acknowledging the irony to eat on the freeway. At the Whole Foods store, he bought “industrial organic” products to go and make a second meal³. The author faces trepidation as he combines mushroom searchers and is concerned that he might opt for poisonous foodstuff over pleasure. When he is in Sonoma County, he hunted wild pigs together with a gourmand pal. The wild pig was to be transformed into “perfect dish” that he opted as the lust of his culinary adventure. Michael Pollan humour plus adventurous attitude guided him all the way from cornfields existing in the Midwest to the Virginia hotel tables.

Along with this journey, he was able to coincide with farmers, explore strategies for solving the omnivore’s dilemma and exposing of conspiracies associated with nutrition. The author presents readers to the petrifying facts related to food and a charming group of characters like Joe Salatin who is “outside organic” farmer and also Angelo who is the gourmet pal and hunting colleague¹. The author tackles disability surfaces in various contexts, and he initially explores how dietary preferences influence evolution hierarchies in different creatures.

The author also highlights how processed foodstuff may result in unhealthy conditions like overweight, high blood pressure, and diabetic complication. Pollan criticizes the food industry propagation of corn syrup in all dishes as a catalyst to overfeeding². The author also acknowledges the difficulty of demonstrating that “safer and cleaner” food products like organic products contribute to enhanced human health. The other portion of the book is dwelling on the author’s discussion of Peter Singer’s reasoning concerning vegetarianism about Animal Liberation.

Feeding on animals is oriented in the knowledge that human beings are way intelligent and have more conscious awareness than animals so they should pause³. According to Singer who is a philosopher animal also have substantial intelligence plus awareness, and human beings should not rationalize their morality where animals are subject to death as the source of food, but society member with low cognitive capabilities are not targeted under the similar assumption. About this point, he highlights that  “After all, people are not, as a matter of fact, equal at all — some are smarter than others, handsome, more gifted, whatever.” which is quoted from page 307¹.

Animals should be subject to the same assumptions but should not be treated equally. Through several arguments, the author relies on the natural order and the philosopher’s arguments gives the author a pause². The author has ununiformed language and does not drawback his expression of describing the foodstuffs industry as engages in  “blind-man accounting” in page 201 and defines “brain drain” existing in the United States as a case of “D students [are] left on the farm today” quoted from Salatin in page 220. He also illustrates “the moral status of the retarded and the insane,” in page 311 to describe clustering of individuals in the single class.

The challenge with The Omnivore’s Dilemma exist in it reifying and fetishizing natural order, despite author scoffing at Peter Singer’s comparison about disabled individuals to animals, he is rapid to neglect his model reinforcement on subjugating location in the food chain and the society³. If humanity appreciates natural things, “what we’re eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world”- there is not much expected from us. The author explains how the United States food development has shifted from utilization of sun and grass to generate animal feeds and corns for human sustenance has oriented to fossil and fuel inclinations.

The book has unsatisfying answers to questions such as the responsible dieting in the current world; the author focuses of obvious solutions like purchasing organic products. The author illustrate that the costing and benefit analysis should be in a transparent format to make consumers aware of impact of their diet choices. The essence of personal funded meals express main shortcoming of this publication. This fact of transparency is possible in real world environment considering present market trends³. It is possible to regulate taxes which are imposed on items such as fertilizer but it is not possible to predict the environmental risk associated with food stuffs. The author support free trading for agricultural produce that in reference to economics this matter will bring bankruptcy upon family farms and disorient the market. Even though the author has substantial arguments, he does not consider ancient times before industrialization¹. The author rejects approaches associated with natural world but insist that individuals should exploit self-interest association with the environment. Therefore people should not judge the market for food products end the societal application of market trends, accounting procedures and process since they will not provide correct social costing. The author does not appreciate the effort and difficulties associated with food production through gardening and declines to refer to his garden and relevant efforts². The cost of labour is expensive and in ancient times such efforts of growing food were not subject of pleasure but mere means for survival.