hearts and laserbeams book report: the omnivore's dilemma

ok so you know how i go back and forth in my book reports - i'll do some books that are classic high school reading list pieces, some fun chick lit, some nonfiction brainy stuff...

after reading ya ya's in bloom, which i loved by the way, i really was needing something a little more thinky if ya know what i mean. i'd heard from a few peeps that omnivore's dilemma was good so i made that the next read on my list. (i think it's interesting to note that this book was such an intellectual read that i went right back to the other end of the spectrum afterwards and am now reading sophie kinsella's confessions of a shopaholic.)

hearts and laserbeams book report: the omnivore's dilemma: a natural history of four meals by michael pollan

so the omnivore's dilemma the title refers to, it basically is people have so many choices in food we don't know what the hell to eat anymore. food overload. i mean there's more to it than that, but that's the general idea.

if you're into food this book is for you. it basically follows four different food chains from start to finish, with finish always ending up as your mouth. he looks at corn, cows (both commercial and grain fed), and the hunting and gathering lifestyle. and this whole book pretty much makes you want to curl up on your couch and never buy anything from a grocery store ever again.

and it makes you start thinking about effed up the system is.

here's one of the big things i took away from this book, something that bugs the shit out of me:

farm subsidies are given to farmers because they can't sell enough crops to pay their bills. they can't sell enough crops because prices are too low. in an effort to make more money the only thing to do is grow more crops. which equals an even higher market surplus and even lower prices.

there's a huge corn surplus, and every day They (whoever they are) finds more ways to shove it down our throats. one way is to process it so it's kinda corn-flaky and feed it to cows. sounds like a great idea, corn fed cows are supposed to be real tasty. problem is it's a myth; cows aren't even supposed to eat corn and get sick from that diet. so farms have to drug up the cows with antibiotics to keep from getting sick.

another way the corn surplus is shoved down our throats is through value meals at fast food places. you don't need that much food. you don't need a 5 gallon paintbucket full of soda or a 12 pound hamburger. stop it.

basically i got really angry at these parts of the book, and then in the following chapters it talks about a farm that grows all kinds of crops and has all kinds of happy animals living on it in a perfect symbiotic system (thanks to the farmers help), and it made me want to run away to georgia and make all the food josh and i eat. those chapters made me so happy, i am not kidding you.

i loved the last section that was all about hunting and gathering, and i kinda wanna try catchin my own yeast to make bread with... i wonder what it would taste like?

and that's pretty much it - book about food and pretty non-biased but still very much an expose on the system. if you like brainy stuff, and long descriptions of different kinds of food totally turns you on then this book is for you the end!

ratings:
4 hearts: really good stuff to think about, and also it gave me some ideas josh and i can put into practice now
1 fart: it took me a really long time to read this - i'm a busy woman, dammit!

sorry i'm not giving away this copy, my buddy gayle already asked to read it when i was done - but stay tuned, i'll totally be doing a giveaway of my confessions of a shopaholic book.