The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Posted by jenniferhughes on Oct 28, 2006 · Member since Aug 2006 · 1828 posts
Just wondering if anyone has read, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and if they had any thoughts they felt like sharing before I bought a copy.
You know along the lines of:
"Totally buy it, worth every penny."
"Good read but don't buy it."
"No! No don't! It's horrible!"
:-\
Thanks!
I haven't read it myself, but Amazon.com has some interesting reviews of it:
http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Michael-Pollan/dp/1594200823
I found this one particularly helpful:
A Flawed Masterpiece, April 26, 2006
Reviewer: Erik Marcus "Author of Meat Market: Animals, Ethics, and Money" (Ithaca, NY USA)
The Omnivore's Dilemma is a celebration of alternative agriculture that every vegetarian should read. Michael Pollan's account of modern-day food production is beautifully written, and demands the attention of everyone who cares about what, or who, they eat. This is easily among the most important books on food written this decade. Happily, Pollan's disgust with factory farming is clear, and The Omnivore's Dilemma is largely a quest to bring ethics into animal agriculture.
Unfortunately, the superior quality of Pollan's writing only makes the book's flaws all the more glaring. The Omnivore's Dilemma contains numerous minor and forgivable lapses:
*Pollan spends three pages writing about Omega 3s, and the potential for grass-fed beef and free-range eggs to provide this elusive nutrient. Yet he never so much as mentions flax seeds, which are by far the cheapest and cleanest source of Omega 3s.
*He writes that, "...eggs and milk can be coaxed from animals without hurting or killing them-or so I at least thought." Whatever he may have once thought, he never gets around to informing readers that every commercially produced layer hen and dairy cow-even if free-range or organically fed-is sent to slaughter.
*He even suggests that if all Americans went vegetarian, "it isn't at all clear that the total number of animals killed each year would necessarily decline." This argument was first made by Oregon University agriculture professor Steven Davis, and has since been thoroughly debunked by Gaverick Matheny.</ul>
These lapses can easily be remedied with short rebuttals. Not so with one of the book's main and most problematic themes: the idea that one small farm in Virginia might serve as a template for enlightened agriculture. The Omnivore's Dilemma is largely a hagiography of Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface farm. Salatin's lifework is admittedly remarkable. He's taken virtually all the overt cruelty-but alas, none of the slaughter-out of his egg, chicken, and beef operations. What's more, Salatin has found a way to raise these animals without drugs or pesticides. Through farming practices that radically depart from convention, it appears that Salatin's brand of animal agriculture enriches rather than depletes his soil with each passing year.
Most vegetarians take for granted that eating animals is akin to buying a Hummer, removing its catalytic converter, and using the vehicle to cart around nuclear waste. Pollan's book convincingly shows that animal agriculture can, in fact, operate in a way that respects the environment. For a reader who's acquainted with the staggering wastefulness of animal agriculture, it's hard not to get caught up in Pollan's account of the Polyface alternative.
What Polyface has accomplished is a genuine achievement. However, Pollan never points out that there's a reason why Polyface is plunked down in rural Virginia-hardly the heart of cattle country. This model of farming could simply never be transplanted to the arid, near-dessert landscape of America's western states-the region that produces nearly all American beef. It's one thing to practice boutique farming and to raise 50 grass-fed cattle a year on lush, rain-soaked land in rural Virginia. It's quite another to imply that Polyface could be anything like a model for transforming America's beef industry. You simply can't scale up what's happening on a 50-steer farm in Virginia to positively transform the way that more than 20 million cattle are raised in the American West.
Michael Pollan is a talented writer, and had he only put this manuscript out for proper review this book could have been a masterpiece. Despite its flaws, The Omnivore's Dilemma deserves the attention of everyone who cares about animal cruelty. Nowhere is the case for eating animal products made so persuasively and thoughtfully. Yet the book's shortcomings demand some prerequisite reading-otherwise the reader may succumb to the same lapses in thinking that overcame Pollan.
Reprinted with permission. First published by VegNews magazine, May/June 2006
I'm going to have to give in and get it; the conversations surrounding it have become very interesting and it's sparked a lot of consciousness raising efforts among the "yuppie" set (if Slate's coverage is any indication, anyway).
Is there a paperback yet? Anyone stuck their nose between its pages in since the last time this went around? I'm sooo curious!
The Omnivore's Dilemma is currently the 2006 Campus Community Book Project at UC Davis. Davis is the center of the national debate on frankenfood v. bioregionals. The entire city of Davis has gone Pollan-crazy. He'll be there in a few weeks to conduct panels, give talks,etc. Here's a website that may be of interest to you: http://occr.ucdavis.edu/ccbp2006/index.cfm He opens up an interesting dialogue, but shouldn't your local library have this for free? Check it out from the library, read it, and if it proves useful in your life, then buy a copy.
bumping this, but i am currently reading this book. it is pretty good. so far haven't gotten into anything pro-vegan or similar but i am enjoying it a lot.
I liekd it a lot. But, if you're looking for a pro-vegan or pro-vegetarian book - this is NOT it.
Frankly, his example of Polyface farm and his studies on organic, free range, naturally raised meat (animals) pretty much convinced me that I don't need to strive for a 100% vegan world. I want to be rid of factory farms and feedlots, but something like Polyface Farm - I have nothing against it. I think they're story is astounding: buying a delipidated farm, and then turning it around - not just in terms of profit, but in terms of sustainable ecology. From the point of view of an ecologist, I find that incredible. They have a completely closed circle - land, plant, animal, man - working in complete symbiosis. Ecologically it's truly amazing.
So, again - it's definitely NOT a pro-vegan or pro-vegetarian book. The author is not a vegetarian or vegan ... but the studies on sustainability and ecology in agriculture are fascinating.
If anyone is interested in what is in processed food, and in ecology - it's a great book. If you're looking for something to convince you to remain vegan or vegetarian - it's not it, lol. Polyface farm almost made me give up the vegan diet! It was a close call, at any rate. But, I went vegan for my health ... so I managed to stick to it.
ha ha. good to know. i am mainly vegan for sustainability reasons sooo :-\.
ha ha. good to know. i am mainly vegan for sustainability reasons sooo :-\.
Well, I think you're probably safe - unless you live in VA, near Polyface farm. I haven't seen too many examples of such a farm anywhere else. And they're absolutely local - they don't deliver their meat or veggies anywhere except the towns near them, or for pick up.
So, your sustainability reasons still work. :)
i am sure my sustainability reason would still work anyway... but i actually got the book recommendation from a sustainable farmer near me when i went to a ditty bops show for their sustainable farming tour...
still... i doubt it will deter me from veganism
I saw on my text book list that I will be reading this for one of my classes this semester. I wanted to read it before, but never got to it.