In Short: Everything we eat is basically corn. That’s unnatural and its screwing up everything.

For those of you haven’t heard of Michael Pollan, he’s a professor of journalism here at Berkeley. I’ve been reading some of his books and articles. One of his best works, in my opinon, is The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan introduces some amazing insights about the relationship between humans and food.

Pollan describes the four main ways in which human societies have obtained food: the current industrial system, the big organic operation, the local self-sufficient farm, and the hunter-gatherer.

In the first section of the book he explores industrial food. He demonstrates that nearly everything we eat in Western society, particularly in America, is derived from corn. Even the protein in our diet from foods such as eggs, chicken, fish, and beef are essentially derived from corn: cows, chickens, and fish are coerced to consume a food that to them is highly unnatural. If we are what we eat, as Pollan says, we are mostly corn.

He is critical of the food produced by the industrial food chain. He argues that virtue of cheap food, particularly food derived from cheap corn, hides its cost. The true cost of cheap food is borne by Western populations in the form of taxes and corn subsidies, environmental damage, and most importantly, health problems. He details major similarities between the modern obesity epidemic and the rampant alcoholism of 19th century America, both of which are explicable by the need to use an ever-growing surplus of cheap corn. He contends that we are participating in an unsustainable form of food production, and that our dependence on a single crop is a glaring weakness that may serious consequences for our health and the environment.

In the the remainder of the book he criticizes the modern organic food industry, explores self-sufficient farming, and discusses hunting and gathering.

Bottom line- great book, it will change the way you think about food and the food industry.

-Ro