The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan

Introduction and Part I, Industrial Corn

      The title of this book - The Omnivore's Dilemma - suddenly springs into focus when Pollan rises the questions of whether Americans should eat organic or non-organic fruits, farmed or wild fish. In order to answer those questions, Pollan divided his book in 3 main parts : The industrial or corn (and its origin), The Pastoral or grass ( and alternative to the industrial farming), and the personal or the forest (hunting in order to put a meal together)

      The Introduction, entitled "Our National eating disorder", begins with a simple question "What should we have for dinner?" ( "we" meaning the Americans). Pollan underlines the complexity of the question since it appears that the Americans have no idea what fills their stomachs, hence the fact that Pollan decided to investigate American food.

I want you to pay attention to those three following quotes and keep them in mind while reading the book :

• "There are other countries, such as Italy and France, that decide their dinner questions on the basis of such quaint and unscientific criteria as pleasure and tradition, eat all manners of "unhealthy" foods, and, lo and behold, show our surprise at this by speaking of something called the "French Paradox", for how could a people who eat such demonstrably toxic substances as foie gras and triple crème cheese actually be slimmer and healthier than we are? Yet I wonder if it doesn't make sense to speak in term of an American paradox – that is, a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily." (p.3)

• "We are not only what we eat, but how we eat, too." (p.6)

• "Many of the problems of health and nutrition we face today trace back to things that happen on the farm, and behind those things stand specific government policies few of us know anything about." (p.9)

     As the name suggests, this entire first part of the book is devoted to providing relevant information about Corn. Mexicans are usually known as "corn people" since the majority of their meals consists in a lot of corn. However, it appears the the Americans are more of a "corn people" that the Mexicans. Worse, scientists found a high percentage of "corn carbon" in a typical North American hair. (Strange, isn't it?) Pollan devoted the entire chapter on corn and its background and also discovered that corn is present in almost every single product in the supermarket ( from meat products to soft drinks.)

The author highlights why corn came to be as massive as it is today. Corn result from humans "playing god" ; creating more problems that they had imagine. Pollan pays a visit to an Iowa corn farm. The farm owner underlines that a lot has changed since his own grandfather started the farm corn (the synthetic fertilizers came, the irrational government policies came along with the "endless" demand) The author underlines the fact that farmers are actually loosing money with the corn they grow and emphasizes that the US agricultural policies are responsible for this. Indeed, there are creating an artificial demands, which results in excess supply of corn. In the end, corn has almost no value.

Chapter 4 is the chapter you want to avoid if you eat meat and if you don't want to have your appetite spoiled ( remember that the author warned you in his introduction!) The beef industry causes pollution and toxic waste but there is worse : the industry forces cows to eat seeds full of hormones, antibiotics and synthetic protein from other cows... which is totally crazy and even worse: it is dangerous. Yes, you did read correctly: cattle are fed with corn containing antibiotics. (Cattle used to eat grass back in the days, remember?)

The author acknowledges the silliness of the situation: "Here the drugs are plainly being used to treat sick animals, yet the animals probably wouldn't be sick if not for the diet of grain we feed them"(p.79), he says.

Folks, here is the cold truth : corn isn't corn anymore. If "You are what you eat"[then]what we are, or have become, is not just meat but number 2 corn and oil" (p.84) If Americans assume that "[they] are what [they] eat", according to the author, Americans are not far from being reduced to corn. However, since it is nearly impossible to know how the industry actually process corn, Pollan studied this process at the Center for Crops Utilization Research at Iowa State University.

Further on in part I , Pollan states that processing food uses a lot of energy: "for every calorie of processed food it produces, another ten calories of fossil fuel energy are burned." Basically, on top of messing up the American food, the industry is wasting energy. ( Does " greenhouse effect" rings a bell ?)

Question :Why using corn everywhere?      Answer : Two words. Money matters.

Indeed,even Coca-cola drinks contain corn. Indeed, why keeping the sugar when you can save cents with the corn syrup, right? "By 1984, Coca-Cola and Pepsi had switched over entirely from sugar to high-fructose corn syrup" (p.104) states the author.

In chapter VI, Pollan tackles the issue of the "fat" nation since the over production is leading to over consumption. ( Does " Super size me" rings a bell?) American culture is known to be "big" for everything. I'm not only talking about food here, I'm also talking about the result of this "big" food (meaning fat people)
The notion of (over) abundance is used by Pollan when he draws a parallel between the over consumption of corn whiskey in 19^th century and the current over consumption in food. Pollan underlines the human psychology aspect by stating that the food industry increased food portions to give people more food while avoiding them to feel guilty since they do not eat a second portion.

Pollan then highlights that this over consumption of food has direct consequence on American's health. Statistics says that a baby born in 2000 has 1/3 chance of developing Type 2 diabetes in his/her lifetime. Why? A high density of Corn Syrup is contained in virtually every sweetened products. 3/5 Americans are considered overweight.
Again, why do people continue to eat cheap or to each junk-food ? The answer is worse than the question : it tastes good. ( Do they know about health warnings?)

If " you are what you eat", then people should know "junk-food" doesn't sound good. Pollan finally has the epitome of junk ( and processed) food : McDonald's. And indeed, it doesn't sound good at all. The facts are here: "Some time later I found another way to calculate just how much corn we had eaten that day. I asked Todd Dawson, a biologist at Berkely, to run a McDonald's meal through his mass spectrometer and calculate how much of the carbon in it came originally from a corn plant...the atomic signature of those carbon isotopes is indestructible, and still legible to the mass spectrometer.... soda (100 percent), milk shake (78 percent), salad dressing (65 percent), chicken nuggets (56 percent), cheeseburger (52 percent), and french fries (23 percent)" (p.116)

     As a conclusion, Pollan blames the agricultural policies for the unhealthy Americans. Corn is not eating directly, however it is there. Animals had been fed with corn, foods have been processed. In the end, up to 90 percent of corn energy(or calorie) is lost in the process. Americans eat more and more - and are left not satisfied, but “simply, regrettably, full.” (p.119)

PS: Do you get why I really don't want to step a foot in Mcdonald's?

More to come on Thursday...