The Dilemma Persists

Before coming even close to being able to write this blog post, I faced my own dilemma, ironically.  I have been so intrigued by this book that I could not decide whether to read on another 100 pages or to skip to the third and final section of the book which sounded very interesting.  Since I desired to read the whole book I chose to move on to the next one-hundred pages, however this was just taking so long and the final section just kept grabbing my eye so last minute I started reading the end.  Anyway, I’m glad I did for it has been a much quicker read and very, very interesting.  

First of all, the final section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma is called Personal: The Forest and as the title suggests it is personal to the author.  In this section Michael Pollan decides to take his meal into his own hands, literally hunting and gathering all items of his meal himself.  However, he quickly realizes that although he desires to take on this task, it is somewhat unrealistic because he does not have any background in hunting, never even having shot a firearm!  Also, ever since he was young he steered away from gathering plants for food because his mom had always made him aware of how dangerous wild plants could potentially be to someone.  With this said, Pollan decided to find someone who would be able to help him on this journey of preparing his own meal, which was a good idea, for Pollan’s initial knowledge of the natural foods was much like my own, not very extensive.  However, the experiences he was soon to face and research about brought him great knowledge of what the natural environment had to offer and why.  

Pollan describes in the beginning of this third section some of what lies behind the phrase ‘the omnivore’s dilemma’, he writes about the differences between animals who eat different things and the correlation between the size of the brain and stomach.  One part I found very interesting in this chapter was about the sensory and mental tools omnivores have developed and how these tools, specifically cooking, are thought to be the reason for the increase of the hominid brain 1.9 million years ago.  He describes also, how taste is an important tool to the omnivore because we are predisposed to have certain feelings about certain tastes.  Sweets, for example, tend to be a taste that most of us enjoy, the reasoning is far more extensive than what I would have ever thought.  I always thought I liked chocolate because it tasted good, I never considered why it tasted good, however now I know that sweet flavors signify sugar which signifies glucose, which is a very important factor to our brains.  Glucose is the form of energy that the brain uses and to have such a craving for sweets, as humans, it shows how important brain energy is for us.  

In the following chapters Pollan discusses the ethics of eating animals and how this led him to become a temporary vegetarian and the dilemma’s that comes along with that life style as well.  Further through the pages, he writes about the day 534’s, the steer he had been paying for to be raised and slaughtered, life would end and what that might hold for him.  Finally, I reached the part where Pollan entered the forest and began to hunt.  This was a very intriguing section of the book, for I come from an area where hunting is all that is spoken about around November 15th and to read about someones first experience is very interesting.  

Overall, where I left off in this book has me on the edge of my seat and ready to finish it up, including the middle section I unfortunately skipped for the time being, and also has me thinking a lot about what I eat and if I would like to change of that.  Even, perhaps, attempt to experience as Pollan did gathering a meal of my own...  We shall see.