The Omniovore’s Dilemma

1. The Omniovore’s Dilemma Olivia Wagner, CindyYou, Jessica Zhang

2. Michael Pollan February 6, 1955 American author, journalist, and activist Professor of Journalism Narrator of Food Inc.

3. Main Themes • What should we have for dinner? • Americas National Eating Disorder • America’s lack of Culinary Tradition • What its really like to work in the food business • How the countries federal policies have turned agriculture into an industry

4. 3 Main Themes

5. 1. THE Omnivores Dilemma..What should we have for dinner? • As omnivores, actually the most unselective eaters, we are faced with a wide variety of choices of food • Confused and anxious about what we should be eating we rely on “expert” advice from food scientists, nutritionist, and investigative journalists to decide what on put on the table each night • How did we lose our way?

6. 2. Culinary Traditions and Food Choice • For generations taste and traditions has guided the food choice of many cultures • Many cultures traditions seem to “accidentally” render food nutritious • French Paradox • Americas lack of culinary tradition

7. 3. America’s National Eating Disorder • Industry takes advantage of vulnerable America • Reliance on information rather than culture to sort the food choices we make

8. Key Points • INDUSTRIAL: Corn • PASTORAL: Grass • PERSONAL: Forest

9. 1. INDUSTRIAL: Corn Follows a bushel of commodity corn from a field in Iowa to its final destination as a fast food meal • corn has become the keystone species of the industrial food chain • Inexpensive, versatile, raw material

10. Defendant: The American Chicken Nugget Charge: Piling corn upon corn

11. Chicken ate a corn based diet Modified corn starch binds the ground corn-fed chicken together Corn flour batters the nugget Corn oil fries the nugget Leavenings, lecithin, the golden coloring, the mono-, di-, and triglycerides are derived from corn

12. Why Corn? • Fattens up steer • Can be easily recompounded into a number of different products

14. America’s Current System • Grow as much corn as they can on land • Maximum application of chemical fertilizer and pesticide What is the incentive? • Government subsides are based on bushelsthe more corn the farmers deliver to the grain elevator the more $ they government gives them

15. America’s Current System Result? • Corn production is pushed up far above the real demand • Prices of corn drop.. • Subsidies drop... • Farmers increase production of corn

16. 2. PASTORAL: Grass Pollan visits Polyface farm, where the farmer, Joel Salatin, takes active steps to work within natural ecology • “Grass” farmer “all agriculture is at heart a business of capturing free solar energy in a food product that can ben turned into high-value human energy” • Salatin in a conductor in his farms orchestra

17. Symbiotic Relationship on the Farm • Cattle: grass roatiations • Eggmobile: grubs and sanitation • Pigs: savannah and aerating • Compost: Chicken guts “In an ecological system like this everything’s connected to everything else, so one thing without changing ten other things”

18. 3. PERSONAL: Forest Pollan decides to make and eat a meal consisting of food he caught and foraged himself in order to regain touch with the source of his sustenance

19. My responce • As a future registered dietitian who will be providing nutritional direction to clients, I did agree with a lot of what Pollan said. Although I think certain individuals do need to seek direction, I feel that the information they receive should be balanced with reason and science. It made me ask myself what is a reliable source of information? This really spun me for a loop