In “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” author Michael Pollan embarks on a journey to answer the ever so perplexing question of, “What should we have for dinner?” Pollan’s journey takes the reader far and wide into the depths of the industrial food chain, organic food chain, and hunter-gatherer food chain. In his efforts, Pollan ponders the answer to why this question, seemingly simplistic, has become so interwoven with complexity-because of the amount of food choices an omnivore in America has. Furthermore, Pollan speaks on behalf of the American paradox that we are, “…an unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily.” In his attempts to interpret the complications of choosing an appropriate meal, Pollan explains it as a type of vulnerability that we possess as a result of being a culture of people who has breakable ties with our food traditions.

        In the two opening chapters of Part I of Pollan’s book, corn and farming are discussed. “Walking Corn” is what he refers to the American people as. This illustration of the American way eradicates Wendell Berry’s hope of “eating as an agricultural act.” Pollan further embellishes on the disassociation of the food we eat and the land it comes from, when he wheels us along into the supermarket full of food that is a mere “rearrangement of molecules” filled with corn flower, corn starch, and corn oil. The result of the corn fed animals competing for our purchase along with the processed foods filled with corn, packaged with corn, and shining because of corn, it is nearly impossible for the average consumer to trace the food back to where it once came from.

        In addition to the overstock of corn, farming is taking a turn for the worse, putting farmers in debt higher than the bushels of corn they grow. The inexpensive, profitable corn crop has forever transformed the once green, pasture-like farms into black, asphalt-like farms. The increase in corn plant’s production has lead to a decrease in plant, animals, and human population in certain towns. Undeniably, our reliance on fossil fuel has been manifested in our salivating desire for yield. Our reliance on fossil fuel and less on solar energy has reconstructed the food chain. Moreover, the discovery of synthetic nitrogen and its excessive use of it leads to environmentally threatening risks of water contamination and global warming. Pollan so graciously reminds us that this would not be so, “…if we were a country with a stable culture of food.”



Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: a Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.



 

         In Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation: Why the Fries Taste Good excerpt, the audience gets a peek inside of the not-so-private Simplot plant whose conveyor belts and white coat workers fostered J.R Simplot’s empire of french fries.  Today, the Simplot plant is located in Aberdeen, Idaho, although Simplot’s family originated in Dubuque, Iowa. Simplot was willing to gamble his life away at the ripe age of fifteen when he left home to become a potato farmer at age sixteen. Simplot’s success started with the flip of a coin which gave him the power to hold his future as a multibillionaire in the mechanics of his electric potato sorter. Being the processed food prophet of his era, Simplot, again, put all his chips in and invested in the new-aged frozen food technology and hit it big when he met with Ray Kroc and sealed the deal to McDonald’s. The nation’s eating habits were forever changed as Americans no longer desired boiled, mashed, or baked; they now preferred their potatoes as french fries.

         Simplot’s success had just as much to do with the hand-held potato sorter devices as it did his understanding of the culture that he lived in. He was conscientious of what working men, stay-at-home moms, and children were craving  in life and on their plates.  Much to Stephen Schneider’s dismay, Simplot redefined the term gastronomy for the human race, just not in a good, clean, and fair way. He put food behind the steering wheel instead of at the center of our tables, an endeavor that ultimately reconstructed the human culture as we knew it.


"POV - Food, Inc. . Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: Why the Fries Taste Good (Excerpt) | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 28 Nov. 2010.

        In “Good, Clean, Fair: The Rhetoric of Slow Food Movement,” Stephen Schneider tackles the rising, dangerous currents of the industrial agriculture with his introduction of Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Movement. Schneider addresses issues concerning the industrial agriculture throughout his piece with gastronomy as its focal point. Gastronomy is the relationship between culture and food with a consistent perspective of the table as a “science.”  Slow Food’s enticing, yet controversial movement aims to redefine gastronomy by “relocating food as the center of human culture,” while its name suggests the same.  By reconstructing the core of human culture, consumers hold the power to put a halt on the fast paced life as they recede from capitalism and globalization. The rhetoric of the Slow Food Movement is encompassed by good food that fosters a connection to a geographic region, clean food that facilitates in preserving the environment, and fair food whose production is equitable.



Schneider, Stephen. (2008) Good, Clean, Fair: The Rhetoric of the Slow Food Movement. College English 70.4, 384-401.