The cost of our diet

	FACT High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is everywhere. In a McDonald’s meal, there’s HFCS not only in the soda, but in the ketchup and the bun of a cheeseburger. Source: The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Our way of eating is costly—for American health, soil and livestock. And much of the expense of our food is hidden. It goes uncalculated as toxic run-off from fertilizers used to replenish depleted soil, emissions from the transportation of organic fruit from Asia to local markets, and sick livestock made to eat food their systems can’t properly digest.

In an effort to comprehend the full costs of our available dietary choices and fill in the back stories of the food we eat, Pollan embeds with industrial growers, ex hippies who now make up “big organic”, a sustainable farming zealot, and a chef whose foraged mushrooms grace the plates at some of the Bay Area’s most celebrated dining establishments.

Rather than writerly gimmick, Pollan’s pains to participate in the making of his food—whether by driving a seed-sewing tractor, buying a steer destined for slaughter, or hunting wild boar—seem a natural extension of his efforts to answer the question of what we should eat.

Is the advice practical?
Readers may balk at the time and effort Pollan invests in meal preparation. Few of us will serve homemade boar pâté and fava bean toast to dinner guests this weekend, and doing so doesn’t quite get at the core difficulty of consuming everyday food in a conscionable way. But the author’s enthusiasm for the kinds of feasting that are possible, even within the parameters of mindful eating, is infectious.

Compared with reorganizing the Industrial Food Complex, the effects of mindful eating are tiny. But Pollan’s guiding questions about what we are eating and where it comes from cultivate the curiosity necessary to catalyze bigger changes.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a call to action. But the call comes from an empathetic fellow omnivore—not a guilt-inducing radical. Pollan’s curiosity and tone transform the book’s investigation of shoulds into an invitation for all of us, foodie and fast food lover alike, to eat mindfully. And The Omnivore’s Dilemma makes the reader hungrier to try. 

Lisa Beth Anderson borrows books from the Sulzer Library in Chicago’s Lincoln Square. You can see her photography and short fiction at lbanderson.com

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