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 - Calling all Corn People - READ THIS BOOK!I read this book a little while ago and didn't have time to review it, but the essential messages keep popping into my consciousness as I go about my day-to-day life. Before reading this book, for example, I had never realized that Corn has cunningly taken over the world and turned us all into "Corn People." Pollan's simple plan - to make three meals - turns into an exploration of all things wrong with the modern industrial food production and delivery system. Pollan's prose is wonderful and his thinking nothing short of brilliant. Even if some of his ideas are not completely original, as some critical reviews argue, this is still a remarkable book that will enrich your life - and the world, if enough people read it. Rating: - How an omnivore became a carnivore !This is a fascinating book on how we eat, how our food companies feed us and how the ruthless business efficiency of corporations has created an expoitative food chain with tremendous social, economic, environmental, health and moral problems for us now to resolve. Michael Pollen describes the genesis of four meals and how government policies, marketing by food corporations, restaurants and insatiable demands by the consumer has created this unsustainable food chain in which every one is suffering:the land, the animals, environment, the consumer. As epidemics of obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease and cancer rage in America everybody is searching for an answer. Unfortunately Michael Pollen's book does not succinctly provide that answer (although it does make some oblique reference to it) Homo sapiens came out of the jungles about 10,000 years ago and started agriculture and domesticating animals, but for millions of years before we were hunter-gatherers. Males hunted animals and failed nine out of ten times and the family survived on whatever the female and children gathered with their bare hands: fruits, roots, seeds, succulent leaves. So how does this biologic omnivore become an industrial age carnivore eating meat at each and every meal? and how did we end up eating far more than we need to? We have been eating meat for ages, but meat was expensive until the beginning of 20th century. We ate predominantly a relatively unprocessed plant based diet with some meat every now and then. People did physical hard work to earn a living and used up the calories they consumed. There was no significant heart disease in the 19th century. So the real dilemma is how to turn this gluttonous carnivore back into a true biologic omnivore. This book highlights that vexing issue of today. That is my take from this book. Rating:  - Omnivore's DilemmaA very interesting book which fairly considers, defends and challenges all eating habits from vegans to junk-food junkies. Micheal Pollan does an excellent job of tracking down the history of food laws & policies in the U.S. and revealing how that history impacts our national eating habits today. Most of all I liked the ending, which wasn't doom and gloom but rather a positive recounting of the author's own completley home-made meal. He seemed to really challenge himself, and ultimately enjoy himself, while writing this book. Rating: - WHERE DOES FOOD COME FROM? Omnivore's Dilemma traces our food back to its sources - and in many cases finds corn of all things! The author discusses industrial food production and the primary food chains from their sources to our kitchens. He covers processed foods, mainstream industrial farming, and organic foods. He also addresses how animals are treated, which most people try not to think about. The information in the book is important and eye opening. The take home message for me is that what we eat is so fundamental to life yet we leave it in the hands of others to grow, produce, and deliver to us. This book encourages a consciousness of where food comes from and persuades the reader to look for local organically grown foods or grow some themselves. I recommend this book along with THE 3:00 PM SECRET: Live Slim and Strong, Live Your Dreamsand The 2007 Second Expert Report, Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective. Rating: - Elevated to College TextSpoon River College in Illinois is using this book as one of 3 texts used in its Intro. to Philosophy class. This book opens so many excellent questions about philosophy and ethics that it makes excellent intellectual fodder.
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