Omnivore's Dilemma Chapters 1, 2 ,3 Review

What's for dinner? Michael Pollan book takes it one step further: "What is in the dinner?" The book back tracks from the dinner table, step by step process to rebuild in corn additives back to food status. He realized that Americans are actually corn fed animals too.

After reading chapter 1, it's obvious that no one knows what they're actually eating anymore. I recently headed out to the supermarket; check the labels on about 15 to 20 products. All the products contained some sort of corn sweetener ingredient. Corn is being fed to livestock: dairy cows, pigs, chicken and even salmon at all farms nationwide. Corn is cheaper, and less of a hassle to retrieve animals from the fields. All the available, soft drinks and juices for kids contain corn byproducts. We all know the say, "You are what you eat". The people worldwide are corn on the cob with legs.

In chapter 2, Pollan visits a farmer in Iowa George Naylor. He occupies most of the 470 acres to growing corn. Farming corn is all about the high yield harvesting from each acre of land. The enormous amount of corn harvest keeps the industrial food machine operating. After all the hard work the farmers put into the corn harvesting, the farmers are barely making a living. The high yield of corn, it's depleting the land of the vital nutrients to grown corn. The farmers need to apply fertilizer to the land, so the corn will grow properly. Corn is the only plant that absorbs most of the fertilizer applied to the land. The high yield of corn creates a surplus of corn. This in turn, lowers the price of corn drastically. The farmers are barely making a living growing corn.

This chapter was definitely short than the others. Pollan continues to clarify the mystery of the industrial food of us. When Pollan visited George Naylor's farm, the grain elevator observed a gigantic pyramid of corn. The corn went from a food to a commodity. Pollan watched as the corn was being turned into a yellow river. The liquid corn is pumped into rail cars, and then shipped off to corporations. Process the corn into a sweetener or other additive for the food produced.

Pollan sets out to answer a question and make people aware of what they are eating. What should we have for dinner? This is extremely important question for the Omnivore. They eat a wide variety of food available to them. Monarch butterflies, only eats milkweed. After reading these few chapters you become, stuck between fearing and loving your favorite foods.