EVERYTHING YOU EAT IS MADE OF CORN!!! DID YOU KNOW???? Your various meats have been fed corn, your delicious beverage has been sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, all your tasty fried products have been fried in corn oil, your beer has been fermented from corn. All things are corn!!!Bet you didn't know. In fact, bet there are lots of things you didn't know, about food and where it comes from and what it's made up of and how it's made and what we should be eating and why. And that, my friends, is the omnivore's dilemma. There are SO MANY THINGS TO EAT, and as food production becomes more and more industrialized, we are losing touch with our roots, so to speak.
The Omnivore's Dilemma started off a bit pokey, what with a Dissertation of Corn and ancient vs. modern farming techniques and where is he going with this and why should I care? But then, because it does X to the environment and Y to the economy and Z to our bodies and again, who knew?
Mostly I like eating and I'm brain-lazy, which is why I never bothered to ask things like What the hell does 'organic' really mean? And why is grain-fed beef better for me? And wouldn't it be fun to cook an entire meal from food sources I have hunter-gathered myself? (nothing really any more; it isn't; hells no) Which is why I'm grateful for other people.
So thank you, Michael Pollan, for figuring all these things. This probably won't change the way I eat too drastically (because again, lazy. Also, poor) but it will probably change the way I think about what I eat.
Seven-and-a-half caterpillars.
11 comments:
I always thought it was funny that people eat corn as a side dish when it's already in every single thing we eat anyway. Although corn on the cob with salt and melted butter is pretty hard to pass up... and you can't see a movie without popcorn. And it's a grain but people for some reason insist on calling it a vegetable!
Oh, I loved this book. I'm a sucker for this kind of nonfiction -- my reactions ran all the way from "I will never eat corn again" to "I know! I will RAISE CHICKENS for a living. Forget library school."
My overwhelming impression of this book was AUGH how can I get away from the CORN? I bet it would take over an hour to find something in the supermakert not made with that stuff. It's even in the cat food (and cats don't need carbs).
I thought the chapter about the author trying to hunt/gather food for a meal was really interesting.
Thanks for the honest view of the book. Have heard lots about it!
I'm married to an animal doctor and his views on beef are also related to what they eat and how good it tastes but he never makes me search out organic or otherwise when buying meat!
Thanks for pointing out my typos, too. I just fixed it. I actually was just feeling like an idiot when I rechecked it and then read your comment! Ugg..It's also the first sentence or the title where I screw up. Thanks again for stopping by!
Amazing book, I loved it and wish everyone I know would read it. A couple things I've done as a result of reading this book are:
1. stop.buying.eggs.from.battery.farms. this is easy to do
2. cut down on meat consumption a great deal, and mostly eat meat from pastured animals.
My diet is atrocious, because I'm lazy, too. Although I did have a salad for lunch. A salad with corn in it, since I happen to love the stuff.
Hey Raych, I just tagged you for a bookish meme!
This has been on my tbr list for sometime. It just looks so interesting! But I really have to be in a certain mood for something like this :) Your review makes me want to get to the library!
I was fascinated by this book. So much so that I racked up about $8 worth of late fees to finish it (I'm a slow reader sometimes).
I really appreciated that the author gave a pretty unbiased account of the topic and was realistic about how it would (or would not) change his own habits.
After reading it, I did look into CSAs in my area and had aspirations to start using more unprocessed ingredients than I do now. But, I'm lazy too and I haven't made much progress in that area. Still, I'm really glad I read the book and would highly recommend it to others.
Wow, you're much better at writing interesting, succinct reviews than I am! I loved this book too, even though it was a lot of work to get through-so much information!
I found myself getting bored with this book after awhile. I felt like he could have cut some of it out - but at the same time I did learn a lot. If you liked this one, you should read In Defense of Food. It's way shorter and still gets the point across. PLUS he gives you tips on how you can change what you eat, whereas The Omnivore's Dilemma only tells you why you should change.
Post a Comment