Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: Is Organic Better?

Grocery stores like Whole Foods and Vitamin Cottage are gaining popularity due to their abundance of organically-produced foods, all of which claim to be healthier non-organically grown foods in grocery stores like Albertson’s, King Soopers, and Safeway. However, in his recent book The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes his adventure to discover whether this mainstream idea of organic is truly the best type of food to consume. To do this, he sets himself on a journey to find the origins of 4 different meals: a McDonald's meal, a meal with meat from Whole Foods, a meal with meat from a locally grass-fed farm, and a meal that he hunted and gathered himself. This included determining the diets of the animals that meat came from in each situation, how the animals were treated, how they lived, how they were killed, and how the food reached the consumer. By doing this, Michael explains the difference in quality, health, and likelihood of each of the different sources and ultimately answers the questions of whether eating McDonald's is unhealthy, if organic super stores are legit, and whether it is better to hunt one's own meal.

THE INORGANIC: With the McDonald's meal, Michael describes how challenging it was to visit one of the factory farms responsible for farming the animals in which they got the meat for their meals. When he went to visit one of the farms, he was limited to only seeing certain things like the pigs and the chicken coops but was restricted from seeing the slaughter house. He describes how these animals are being fed corn-based because the company makes more profit by using corn instead of grains or grass and corn has more protein, thus making the animals fatter and supplying more meat. However, the bodies of these animals are not built to digest corn. Therefore, they add digestion-inducing chemicals to the feedlots to help the animals consume the corn. Also, these animals are all packed into their living spaces with hardly any room to move around. These claustrophobic conditions significantly increase the risk of diseases amongst the animals. In order to prevent the animals from getting these diseases, the company adds antibiotics to the feedlot. But that's not all! These kinds of companies want the animals to be as fat as possible in order to get the maximum amount of meat. Therefore they add extra protein supplements and left-over animal parts to try to achieve that goal. Michael talks about some of the companies where the chickens get so fat that they can no longer walk so they just sit in the same spot until they are slaughter. He also talks about how the pigs get fat so fast that they are slaughtered weeks before they are fully grown. Therefore, a person that consumes a meal from McDonald's or from similar companies consumes corn, small amounts of antibiotics, other left-over animal parts, and extra protein supplements. This is why this kind of fast-food company is considered inorganic.

THE SO-CALLED ORGANIC:Have you ever heard of Whole Foods? Well in America it is a popular organic grocery store found all over the country (as well as a few in Canada). Everything found in the store is said to be either organic, free-range, or locally produced. In the book, Michael challenges this fact by investigating the sources of the meats sold in these stores (he briefly explains how the organic fruit sold at Whole Foods stays ripe longer than inorganic fruit, but that is all he touches on with any other food than meat). One of the farms, Michael visited sold meat that was said to be of animals that were organically fed with lots of free land to roam around and treated respectfully by the farmers. When he got to the farm, he was surprise to see the reality. Just like at the "inorganic" farm, animals were packed tight (not as tight) into coops/barns were they stay all-day. The animals did have access to the outdoors with side doors on both ends of the coops, but the field of grass was so small that it didn't seem worth it to have it at all. And the animals didn't even go outside. With the chickens, Michael mentions how interesting it was that they all stayed inside. It was as if they didn't even know what was outside. He thought that perhaps the chickens saw no benefits to going outside the scoops and therefore never left their coop. This event brought up the idea of having a USDA Organic certified farm. It seemed as though these farms were trying to get USDA Organic certified by providing the minimal requirements recommended. The farmers at this organic farm treated the animals with the same respect as the inorganic farm, the animals were being slaughtered in the same fashion as the inorganic farm animals, and they were still eating organic grains instead of grass like the are naturally suppose to.


THE REAL ORGANIC: Michael also visited a farm were all the animals were grass-fed and the meat from the animals were sold locally (less than 3hrs of travel time away by truck). When he got to the farm, the owner, Joel, was really enthusiastic about his farm. He called himself a grass farmer instead of a cattle farm because he said that the animals help him grow the grass. And he was right. Joel had mastered the skill of growing grass and doing so in the most sustainable and self-sufficient way possible. He mastered a system where every day or so he would rotate his animals to different patches of grass to eat. He knew, for example, that chickens could not stay on the same grass for very long because their beaks would peck at the grass so much that the grass would not grow back without replanting the seeds. So he would rotate the chickens before the grass would get that torn up. After the chickens were done with a patch of grass, he would bring his cows over to manure the field so that the grass would grow back. He then would bring his pigs on the grass so that they could eat all the earth worms and things to keep the grass healthy. The cycles would repeat themselves and soon enough there was hardly any field work done by the farmers themselves. They were mostly responsible for rotating the animals on time, running the business, making sure all the animals were healthy and eating enough, and basic chores in maintaining the farm. Michael also got to help with the slaughtering of the chickens on the farm. He saw how Joel slaughtered them in such a way that the chickens seemed to be peaceful and not tortured. However, because of some funny USDA regulations, Joel was not allowed to slaughter his own cows or pigs. Therefore, they were sent to an industrial slaughter house every time. But the cool thing about this farm was the customers that bought the meat. Some of them would travel from 4hours away just to get a chicken for their family. Others were locals. But all the customers praised the meat as if it was the best thing they have ever tasted. And when Michael tried the meat out, he said that it was true. "Chicken actually tasted like chicken", he said and was one of the best meals he had ever had. Michael also talked about the eggs from the chickens. He said that when he cracked them, the yolk was so orange and so tough that it didn't break easily. He learned that this meant that the chickens were healthy and the eggs showed that they had strong protein. This made me think differently about the eggs I ate and where they were actually "good" for me. This entire experience Michael had also made me think about our society's definition of organic. These animals were being fed grass, what they are suppose to eat, and they are being sold locally. With organic stores like Whole Foods, some of the animals are grass-fed and from local butchers but for the most part the animal are fed organic grain, something that they are not naturally suppose to eat, and shipped from all around the world. Is that really organic. I call it industrial organic. I do not think that it is possible for everyone to eat from a local farm, and in some places growing grass all year round is not possible. Therefore, it is not feasible for these farms to be all over the world. But I do like how organic supermarkets are taking the next step into redefining our meals. It is EXTREMELY better than places like McDonald's and is still protecting us from eating foods with added chemicals in them. However, it is not the best. If everyone could eat meat from grass-fed farms, I would imagine that people would enjoy their food more and would ultimately be more healthy. From this, I encourage everyone to eat as much locally grow food as possible, but not to be afraid to eat at stores like Whole Foods.

THE ULTIMATE ORGANIC (HUNTING): The final meal Michael investigated was of true hunters & gatherers style. He decided to go out and hunt his own meat, pick his own vegetables from his garden, and pick mushrooms from the wild. He had never hunted before so he got some help from his friend. It took him awhile to actually shoot a wild California Pig, but in the end, he had got one. He also never picked wild mushrooms before, and got from the same friend. For his big finale, he prepared a huge feast for all the people that had helped him on his journey to investigate these four meals. However, he was not as blown away with his meal as he thought he would be. He said that it was not the best meal he has ever had, but he was very proud of it because he did it himself (with some help from his friends). But he said that he hated how it took all day to prepare this one meal. He said that although this is the most natural way to eat, it is not the most feasible. He said he would like to have this on occasion, maybe for a holiday meal, but not all the time.

In the end, Michael concludes that our society has advanced to a level that it is impossible for us to live like hunters and gatherers anymore. Because of the change in our society, our food systems have adapted to fit our needs and has gone so far as polluting our foods with chemicals and antibiotics. Now our society is facing a revolution in the way we eat. We need to remind ourselves of what is healthy and what is not. We need to get rid of the no-good industrial farms and look more into the organic and locally grown food. Maybe then we will become a happier and healthier society.