The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Michael Pollan

Penguin, Apr 11, 2006 - Health & Fitness - 464 pages

One of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year

Winner of the James Beard Award

Author of How to Change Your Mind and the #1 New York Times Bestsellers In Defense of Food and Food Rules

What should we have for dinner? Ten years ago, Michael Pollan confronted us with this seemingly simple question and, with The Omnivore’s Dilemma, his brilliant and eye-opening exploration of our food choices, demonstrated that how we answer it today may determine not only our health but our survival as a species. In the years since, Pollan’s revolutionary examination has changed the way Americans think about food. Bringing wide attention to the little-known but vitally important dimensions of food and agriculture in America, Pollan launched a national conversation about what we eat and the profound consequences that even the simplest everyday food choices have on both ourselves and the natural world. Ten years later, The Omnivore’s Dilemma continues to transform the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.

Contents

• The Plant Corns Conquest: 15
• The Farm: 32
• The Elevator: 57
• The Feedlot Making Meat: 65
• The Processing Plant Making Complex Foods: 85
• The Consumer A Republic of Fat: 100
• The Meal Fast Food: 109
• PASTORAL GRASS: 121
• All Flesh Is Grass: 123
• Big Organic: 134
• Grass Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pasture: 185
• The Animals Practicing Complexity: 208
• Slaughter In a Glass Abattoir: 226
• The Market Greetings from the NonBarcode People: 239
• The Meal GrassFed: 262
• PERSONAL THE FOREST: 275
• The Forager: 277
• The Omnivores Dilemma: 287
• The Ethics of Eating Animals: 304
• Hunting The Meat: 334
• Gathering The Fungi: 364
• The Perfect Meal: 391
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: 413
• SOURCES: 417
• INDEX: 437

About the author

Michael Pollan is the author of eight books, including How to Change Your Mind, Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, all of which were New York Times bestsellers. He is also the author of the audiobook Caffeine: How Coffee and Tea Made the Modern World. A longtime contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan teaches writing at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. 

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
• Author: Michael Pollan
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Penguin, 2006
• ISBN: 1594200823, 9781594200823
• Length: 464 pages
• Subjects: Cooking / History; Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Nutrition; Social Science / Agriculture & Food