THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA: A NATURAL HISTORY OF FOUR MEALS BY MICHAEL POLLAN
Read pages 1-11 and answer the following questions…
1.What does Pollan mean when he says that
the question “What should we have for dinner?”
(1) has gotten complicated? What are
some reasons that it has become so confusing?
2. What does Pollan mean by the term “national
eating disorder”? (2) Do you agree that
America has one?
3. What connection does Pollan think there
might be between America’s eating disorder
and the omnivore’s dilemma? What do our
supermarkets have to do with it? (4)
4. What is the point of Pollan’s list of questions
on page 5 (starting with “The organic apple
or the conventional?”)?
5. What are some of the skills humans have
learned or biological adaptations we’ve
made as a result of our being omnivores? (6)
What does Pollan mean when he says that
humans have learned to “substantially modify
the food chains we depend on” — and
what are some examples of these modifications?
6. Pollan claims that “industry has allowed us
to reinvent the human food chain, from the
synthetic fertility of the soil to the microwaveable
can of soup designed to fi t into a
car’s cup holder” — and then says that “the
implications of this last revolution, for our
health and the health of the natural world,
we are still struggling to grasp.” (7) What
does he mean by this? What are some good
and bad implications of the food industry’s
ability to “reinvent the human food chain”?
7. What three food chains does Pollandecide
to investigate in his book? Describe what he
means by each of his three terms (industrial,
pastoral and hunter-gatherer/neo-Paleolithic).
(7)
8. What effect does Pollan think that the industrial
revolution has had on the food chain?
Does he think these effects are good or
bad? What does he mean when he says that
it’s “changed the fundamental rules of the
game”? (7)
9. Why would Pollan say that the abundance of
food in modern America actually makes the
omnivore’s dilemma worse? (7)
10. What were some challenges Pollan faced
when trying to put together his “perfect
meal”? (9)
11. What does Pollan mean when he says that
“there exists a fundamental tension between
the logic of nature and the logic of human industry,
at least as it is presently organized”?
(9)
12. How do you think we might be taking risks
with our health and the health of the human
world by being part of the industrial food
chain? (10)
13. What does Pollan mean when he says that
humans, plants and animals have “coevolved
to the point where are fates are deeply entwined”?
(10)
14. Why is it bad to lose a sense of connection
to — and knowledge of — where your food
comes from? (11) How do you think we might
change what we eat if we better understood
where our food came from?
15. Who is the audience of this book? Who isn’t?
(11)
Please respond in a 2-3 sentence response.
Make sure you number your answers
Be prepared to share these next Friday! 3/15
Dig deeper with your ideas!!!