A review by julis
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

medium-paced

2.0

 I had vague memories of this book from when my wife had to read it for school (spoilers: she hated it) and then it turned up in a stack to sell at a used bookstore and I went, hey, why not.

Spoilers: I hated it.

It gets 2 stars for not being ATROCIOUSLY written and for having a handful of compelling points buried in a lot of trash.

Problems:
  1. It’s written in a casual tone full of exaggerations for dramatic effect–which whatever, but when the things he’s exaggerating are commonly misunderstood scientific principles and he makes no real effort to clarify what actually happens in evolution by natural vs artificial selection… Hm.
  2. He thinks citations are things that happen to other people, except for one page where there are three citations and the entire rest of the book just gets a list of works consulted by chapter. Good luck.
  3. In MULTIPLE chapters about the ills of factory farming and the current meat & dairy industries in the US he somehow fails to mention that this is a system that developed within his lifetime–factory farming started at all post WW2 and only really kicked into gear in the 50s. Jeremy Bentham didn’t say anything about the horrors of industrial slaughter because they post-date him by 150 years. Instead he spends multiple pages on Peter Singer (ugh) and animal rights theory, which does belong in this book but there is a total of one (1) mention of animal welfare. Which is like. Much more up his alley. Bro??
  4. Ties into 2 and 3 but he makes a lot of sweeping statements about animals that are misleading or outright wrong, and the entire basis of the book (that omnivores struggle to decide what food to eat and so need to put a lot of cultural or individual energy into choosing foods) is somewhat undone by common counter examples. He talks a lot about rats (as being like humans, and very smart) and koalas (as picky and very stupid), but 1, we know a fair amount about food-based decision making that does not come up AT ALL and 2, bears will eat trash can lids and are not the brightest bulbs in the bunch. Parrots are exceptionally smart despite being aggressively herbivorous.