An Early Thought On Michael Pollan's Book The Omnivore's Dilemma:


A couple days ago I received a welcomed phone call from the library informing me that the book I had requested awhile ago, The Omnivore's Dilemma, had finally come in. I actually had forgotten I had even put it on hold. I have just started it, but it is already a fascinating read.

The author divides the book into four different food chains or meals that may reach our plate; the industrial fast-food meal, an "industrial-type" organic meal, a local organic meal, and a foraged/hunted meal. Currently I am still in the conventional industrial section.

What has really interested me thus far, (although I'm not overtaken with surprise) is the reliance of the industrial food system on corn, which is heavily reliant on chemical fertilizers and fossil fuels. According to the book, one-fourth of all items in a typical grocery store contain or was processed with corn. Many foods, like a chicken nugget, contains corn upon corn. The chicken was fed corn. There is cornstarch to hold it together, corn flour on the batter, and corn oil for frying it. It also contains leavinings, lecithin, glycerides, and citric acid-all derived from corn. Wow. Now I know why there was corn in every field where I grew up in Illinois.

One problem with corn is the amount of nitrogen that it needs to grow. Of coarse the industrial corn producers use chemical fertilizers, which end up in the wells. To this day the well at my Mother's house where I grew up has nitrate levels so high children and pregnant women aren't supposed to drink the water from it. Needless to say I bring my own artesian water.

Another huge problem is the amount of fossil fuels needed to produce industrial corn. Pollan brings up an eye-opening statistic. Because of the amount of fuel needed to create the fertilizers and pesticides, drive the tractors, and transport the corn, more than one calorie of fossil fuel energy is needed for every calorie of food produced. It doesn't take much to see that this process isn't very sustainable. Or as Pollan states it "too bad we can't simply drink the petroleum directly".

To keep this from becoming a book review, I would jsimply like to recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read it, or like myself, hasn't finished it. Perhaps I will do another post on the book in the future if it's a topic I feel like discussing.