A TEACHER’S GUIDE to The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by michael pollan PENGUIN GROUP (USA) I. INTRODUCTION Pollan begins his book with a seemingly simple posed to eat. But in America, Pollan says, we’ve question — What should we have for dinner? — lost this connection with the past. A nation of that he believes modern Americans have lost the immigrants, we’ve never had a “single, strong ability to answer. Confused and anxious about culinary tradition” that tells us what to eat. (5) what we should be eating, we rely on outside, Worse, this cultural void has been fi lled with a “expert” advice, from food scientists, nutrition- cacophony of competing voices — food compa- ists, and investigative journalists, to decide what nies, politicians, nutritionists — telling us what to put on the table each night. Pollan wants to we should eat, often with their profi t (rather than know how we lost our way. our health) in mind. The result, says Pollan, is For him, America reached a new level of absurdi- that the omnivore’s dilemma has come back with ty in 2002, when the Atkins diet saw a resurgence an “almost atavistic vengeance.” (4) We wander and, almost overnight, carbohydrates became di- bewildered in the supermarket because we don’t etary villains (replacing fat as our nutritional en- know what to eat. And worse, we don’t know how emy number one). Pollan hypothesizes that any to fi gure it out. culture that could change its eating habits on a In order to determine how we got to this point, dime must have some sort of eating disorder be- Pollan decided to go back to the beginning. cause such a thing “never would have happened Working on the premise that “humans take part in a culture in possession of deeply rooted tradi- in a food chain, and our place in that food chain, tions surrounding food and eating.” (2) After all, or web, determines to a considerable extent who why do Americans — unlike people in most oth- we are,” (6) he decided to investigate three dif- er countries in the world — rely on ferent modern food chains: the industrial, the the government to come up with di- organic, and the hunter-gatherer. He structured etary goals to tell them what to eat? his investigation into four meals: a fast food meal Why do we choose our meals on eaten in the car, an organic meal from Whole the “food pyramid” — which itself Foods, an organic meal from a family run farm, changes every few years and is often and, lastly, a meal for which he gathered, grew or dependent more on politics than hunted all the ingredients himself. on science? Why do we pay more By tracing each of these meals from its beginnings attention to the percentages of vi- to his table (or, in the case of the industrial meal, tamins in our breakfast than we do his car), Pollan brings up several main themes. to its taste, or substitute “nutrition First is that many of the nutritional and health bars” for meals? Pollan points out problems facing America today can be traced that Americans seem mystifi ed by back to the farms that grow our food (and the the “French paradox” — that is, the government policies that dictate what happens question of how a culture that con- on those farms). Pollan believes that America’s sumes so much cheese, wine and approach to food is driven by a desire to “over- croissants can possibly be healthier simplify nature’s complexities, at both the grow- than we are. But he says that per- ing and the eating ends of our food chain.” (9) haps instead we should be examin- In other words, we nearly always prioritize abun- ing the “American paradox”: “a no- dance — we want to produce as much food as tably unhealthy people obsessed by possible at as cheap a price as we can — whereas the idea of living healthily.” (3) nature prioritizes qualities like diversity, symbi- Pollan thinks that Americans are struggling with osis and equilibrium. Pollan thinks that by cre- what he refers to as the “omnivore’s dilemma” — ating and embracing the industrial food chain, if you can eat anything (and, in the case of Amer- which replaces solar energy with fossil fuel, rais- icans, have an incredible abundance of available es animals in close confi nement, feeds animals food), then what should you eat? Sure, nature food they didn’t evolve to eat, and then produc- gave us some basic guidelines: Toxic foods often es new and bizarre foods that our grandparents taste bitter. Where there’s sugar, there are calo- wouldn’t have recognized as being edible, “we ries. And most cultures have traditions that sur- are taking risks with our health and the health of round food — like recipes, taboos and rituals the natural world that are unprecedented.” (10) — that help guide them toward what they’re sup- Pollan’s second theme is that the act of eating is 2 A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA: A NATURAL HISTORY OF FOUR MEALS BY MICHAEL POLLAN the most direct connection we have with the nat- To Pollan, eating is more than just putting food ural world — after all, we are taking things cre- into our mouths. It is an agricultural act, an eco- ated by nature and actually ingesting them. Eat- logical act and a political act. Fully understand- ing, says Pollan, “puts us in touch with all that we ing where our food comes from makes us care share with the other animals, and all that sets us about the conditions from which it came, which apart. It defi nes us.” (10) So it’s upsetting, then, in turn can motivate us to change the way we that the industrial processing of food — the sys- eat. And most of all, says Pollan, understanding tem that takes corn and turns it into Twinkies — where your food comes from can help you en- has broken our connection between where our joy it more. “This is a book about the pleasures of food comes from and what we actually eat. But eating,” he writes, “the kinds of pleasure that are Pollan also believes much of the food industry’s only deepened by knowing.” (11) obfuscation of this chain is deliberate, since if we actually understood where and how much of our food is produced, we wouldn’t want to eat it. QUESTIONS: 1. What does Pollan mean when he says that 11. What are some of the skills humans have the question What should we have for din- learned or biological adaptations we’ve ner? (1) has gotten complicated? What are made as a result of our being omnivores? (6) some reasons that it has become so confus- What does Pollan mean when he says that ing? humans have learned to “substantially mod- 2. What does Pollan mean by the term “nation- ify the food chains we depend on” — and al eating disorder”? (2) Do you agree that what are some examples of these modifi ca- America has one? tions? 3. Why does Pollan think that America’s sud- 12. Pollan claims that “industry has allowed us den “carbophobia” might mean that we have to reinvent the human food chain, from the a national eating disorder? (1–2) What about synthetic fertility of the soil to the micro- America makes us more likely to be vulner- waveable can of soup designed to fi t into a able to such a disorder? car’s cup holder” — and then says that “the implications of this last revolution, for our 4. Describe what Pollan means by the “Ameri- health and the health of the natural world, can paradox.” (3) What’s the difference be- we are still struggling to grasp.” (7) What tween it and the so-called “French para- does he mean by this? What are some good dox”? and bad implications of the food industry’s 5. What does it mean to be an omnivore? ability to “reinvent the human food chain”? 6. What is the “omnivore’s dilemma”? (3) Why 13. What three food chains does Pollan decide is it harder for humans to fi gure out what to to investigate in his book? Describe what he eat than it is for, say, a koala? means by each of his three terms (industri- al, pastoral and hunter-gatherer/neo-Paleo- 7. What connection does Pollan think there lithic). (7) might be between America’s eating disorder and the omnivore’s dilemma? What do our 14. What effect does Pollan think that the indus- supermarkets have to do with it? (4) trial revolution has had on the food chain? Does he think these effects are good or 8. What is the point of Pollan’s list of questions bad? What does he mean when he says that on page 5 (starting with “The organic apple it’s “changed the fundamental rules of the or the conventional?”)? game”? (7) 9. Pollan quotes William Ralph Inge as saying 15. Why would Pollan say that the abundance of that “The whole of nature is a conjugation of food in modern America actually makes the the verb to eat, in the active and passive.” (6) omnivore’s dilemma worse? (7) What does Inge mean? 10. What is a “food chain”? 3 A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA: A NATURAL HISTORY OF FOUR MEALS BY MICHAEL POLLAN 16. What were some challenges Pollan faced 20. What does Pollan mean when he says that when trying to put together his “perfect humans, plants and animals have “coevolved meal”? (9) to the point where are fates are deeply en- 17.