Nutrition

Kerri Haacke
11/25/2020

I chose to listen to The Omnivores Dilemma written by Michael Pollan, the book was published

April 11 2006. For some the title says it all but I know that I was a little perplexed when I read

that title and wondered what the book was about and why it was almost 16 hours long and if it

was really worth my time. With that being said, let me tell you about it and hopefully you will

understand why it was most definitely worth my time.

Give a summary -

(Pollan, 0:00–26.00) The book starts out explaining where the titles comes from and going into a

little bit of history on the problem mostly centered in the US as that is where he’s from. He

breaks down what his plan is for the book and how it will be broken up into 3 parts: (Pollan,

26:00–4:39:15) The first being on the industrial food line. He starts in Iowa on a corn farm

growing #2 corn and going into the processes of farming, fertilizing, and selling it. With a good

measure of history tucked in to support points and just as general background knowledge. He

follows the corn in two different directions, from the farm to the elevator to either a feed lot for a

meat cow or to a processing factory breaking the kernels down into the various products and

uses. The final step for this section is the meal and I won’t spoil it for you.

(Pollan, 4:39:15-10:34:17) Part 2 he goes into organics and that topic he has again split into two,

the “Big Organic” and what we will call pastoral organic. He starts out with both in a Whole

Foods store and tries following some of the food items from there back to their sources going to
2 or 3 of the more industrial “organic” farms and talking to them about their processes. He goes

into some of the loopholes and logistics of what makes a food organic vs industrial, free range vs

caged? Spoiler sometimes it’s as simple as having a door leading outside that’s open for a couple

of weeks before the kill date. The meal for the industrial organic side is the meal that was bought

at Whole Foods. On the pastoral side of thing’s, he goes to Virginia to a family run “grass farm”

where he not only learns about but takes part in the circular food system that was the entire basis

of the farm. There are no pesticides, no growth hormones not antibiotics used just nature and a

very smart and calculated plan to keep things running smoothly for all involved. He makes it

sounds like a back woods piece of heaven in Virginia. He goes into history for both aspects of

these again both for background and support of policies and how things were when it first started

out to how its is more or less still to this day. The mean to round out the pastoral organic side I

again wont spoil for you but its mostly local and or provided from the farm.

(Pollan, 10:34:17-15:53:53)Part 3 is personally foraged; we get a little more background on him

as a person and on his childhood as he’s talking about how he’s never hunted or shot more than a

pop cap gun. His goal here is to hunt and forage his own meal. He tells about his experience

hunting in California and foraging for various things like mushrooms and fruits as well. Saying

more than that would almost be spoiling it but it’s quite a journey and he again ties it up nicely

with a home cooked meal of his bounty inviting the people that had helped him in the foraging

and hunting journey and showcasing each item quite nicely.

Which book/documentary did you choose? Why?

I chose The Omnivore’s Dilemma largely because it’s a book that I had just recently heard

mentioned in a video on YouTube. With that fresh in my mind when I saw it on the list I was

already interested as what had been said kind of peaked my interest at the time.

Who is the author? What is their nutrition background?

Michael Pollan is the authors’ name. From what I could find it looks like for the most part his

degrees are in journalism, but it looks like he received an honorary doctorate from the University

of Gastronomic Science as well. Other than the honorary doctorate he just seems to overall

appreciate good food (Pollan).

When was this book written/documentary produced? Do you think the themes are still
applicable today? Why or why not? 

Originally the book published April 11, 2006. It looks like an abridged version was released

more recently that is directed more towards younger readers. I do feel like the themes are still

very much applicable as things have not shifted that much in the bigger picture from what he

writes about. There is still kind of a blurred line on what organic actually is, and the ever-

hanging questions of why its so much more expensive in some cases but not all when we are at

the grocery store. While the book doesn’t deep dive into obesity per say it does go into the issue

of fast food as well as the broken system that is farming when it comes to our governments help

and these things remain to be an issue today.

Compare and contrast 3 topics in the book/documentary to your textbook. 

One of the things that stuck out to me and gets talked about in the book is why we eat what we

do. This was both mentioned in the textbook as well as in The Omnivores Dilemma. It was one of

the first things that we went over in Wardlaw’s Contemporary Nutrition talking about factors

that cause us to pick one thing over another, from childhood experiences to advertising and what

is available to us ( Smith, et al. 4-7). Pollan takes it to a larger scale bringing in both history as

well as science into the reasoning (Pollan, 15:51–16:45). Its something that comes up multiple

times in the book.

Pollan brings up the Mediterranean diet a few times in his book as well, talking about how they

seem to eat for pleasure where as we over all “try” to eat healthy but our healthy food isn’t really

that healthy either (Pollan, 1:45-5:20) while I feel like we also talked about the Mediterranean

diet quite a bit in the text book as well with a picture of their food pyramid and physical activity

as the base and fresh foods like fruit, veggies grains and legumes just above it instead of our

trying to cut grains and carbs altogether (Smith, et al. 54-55). We now obviously have learned

that eating the “Atkins diet” is bad but there are still those diets that cut nearly all carbs out and

some do lose weight but once they go off of that diet usually gain it right back if not more.

We go over sugar and its various forms in the body in the text book (Smith, et al. 120-122) what

we didn’t go over is that many of its forms can be derived or are biproducts of processing corn,

creating starch and corn syrup which leads to of course high fructose corn syrup (Pollan,

3:21:35-3:29:59) which is in just about everything processed. I was surprised to find that so

much could be made from corn honestly, but then there were a lot of things that I had no idea

about that I learned from this book.

What did you learn about nutrition from completing this assignment?

There was a lot that I learned from listening to this book. Its going to be a keeper for sure and

I’m going to likely listen to it again with my husband. There were some hard truths in it that may

no be for everyone. He does not beat around the bush on how terrible industrial chicken farms

are or how disgusting the “KFO’s” are when he follows the corn to his cow and his cow to well

killed and butchered. There is a lot of information in this book and it can be pretty eye opening I

think whether you want it to or not.

I would very much like to try to honestly. Learning about the industrial portion of our food

processes made me not really want to eat meat that night for dinner while also simultaneously

craving something like fast food. I’ve talked to my husband about looking for a local ranch that

has cows and seeing about buying some grass fed beef as well as maybe seeing if someone near

by has chickens and has some eggs to spare or that I can buy from them every couple of weeks or

so. Growing a garden right now is out of the question as we just done have a yard or space to do

it and have it be healthy but for the long run its bumped up that item on our list for when we do

move.

The book also made me want to pay a lot more attention to where things are coming from and

what’s actually in season because I realized that as he was talking about it toward the end of the

book( Pollan, 15:10:16-15:14:15) I realized I don’t know what would be in season right now as

we head into winter and the temperatures drop if anything really.

Citations

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Audio, 2006, (0:00-26:00)

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Audio, 2006, (26:00-4:39:15)

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Audio, 2006, (4:39:15-10:34:17)

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Audio, 2006, (10:34:17-15:53:53)

Pollan, Michael. Michael Pollan, 2020, michaelpollan.com/.

Smith, Anne et al. ISE Wardlaw's Contemporary Nutrition: A Functional Approach. 6th ed.,
Mcgrawhill. PP 4-7

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Audio, 2006, (15:51-16:45)

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Audio, 2006, (1:45-5:22)

Smith, Anne et al. ISE Wardlaw's Contemporary Nutrition: A Functional Approach. 6th ed.,
Mcgrawhill. PP 54-55

Smith, Anne et al. ISE Wardlaw's Contemporary Nutrition: A Functional Approach. 6th ed.,
Mcgrawhill. PP 120-122

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Audio, 2006, (3:21:35-3:29:59)

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Audio, 2006, 15:10:16-15:14:15)