Will I love The Omnivore's Dilemma?

OK, I don’t actually love this book.

I think it gets a lot wrong about agriculture, and it’s responsible for a lot of romantic myths about what farms that will make it very difficult for us to eat less of the earth—starting with the idea that the environmental tragedy of agriculture was intensification (chemicals and other modern practices that allowed farmers to grow more food per acre) rather than extensification (the transformation of nature into agriculture as farmers use more acres to grow food).

But Pollan is a beautiful writer, and he identified many real problems with industrial agriculture; there’s… show more.

Michael Pollan made his name writing about eating and drinking as ecological and political acts. In this—one of his best-known books—he explores the wider questions that arise from our food choices as omnivores. He dissects three food chains, the industrial, the organic, and the hunter-gatherer, as different ways of connecting us through what we eat to the sun’s energy and soil fertility.

Industrial food, however, also draws much energy from fossil fuels, which he demonstrates by exploring the impacts on the earth and our bodies of the use of industrial corn products. Significantly, however, the other food chains… show more.

This book opened my eyes to the history of why we make the food choices we make. Smart, funny, and yet approachable, this history of our four meals took me on a food journey that made me think, laugh, and even cry.

When I read anything by Michael Pollan, I feel as though he has stepped inside my head and expanded my thinking about food, its history, and the impact of our choices on our wellness and the planet.