Chapter One: The Plant: Corn's Conquest

Most chapters of Pollan's book are further divided into sections. The first chapter, The Plant: Corn's Conquest, actually contains five of these subsections.
1. A NATURALIST IN THE SUPERMARKET
-"What am I eating? And where in the world did it come from?" At first sight, the supermarket is filled with biodiversity: there are so many vegetables, fruits, herbs, fungi and animals! It's no wonder the first thing you stumble upon is the produce section. But venture farther and the the diversity is gone. 

It's not as diverse as it looks.

Sure, tortilla chips differ from breakfast cereals, soda and microwaveable dinners. But they are all tied together by--you guessed it--corn. Corn feeds the chicken, the cow, the pig, the catfish and even salmon that becomes steaks, eggs, filets and fish sticks. Corn is in the high-fructose corn syrup in our soda. Corn makes up anything from maltodextrin, absorbic acid, dextrose, lecithin, maltose, HFCS, MSG, xanthax gum, polyols, caramel color, crystalline fructose.... the list goes on and on. Even vegetables have corn-wax coatings, corn derived pesticides and they stand on stalls that have some connection to corn. But where did it come from, and how did it end up in everything?
2. CORN WALKING
- "So that's us: processed corn, walking." Mayan descendents in Mexico refer to themselves as "the corn people." But after finding out how much corn we eat, Pollan began to refer to Americans as the real (processed) corn people. This chapter explains that corn is a special "C-4" plant that makes it easier to capture carbon from the air and create more sugar and energy for itself, which in turn gives us more sugar and energy. Since the corn is so successful in creating calories, we eat it, and then grow more of it, and the corn's success story spreads. Carbon 13 is found in humans who eat corn, compared to the Carbon 12 found in most plants. This proves that Americans, not Mexicans, eat more corn.
3. THE RISE OF ZEA MAYS
-Corn is a success story. Many native species of the Americas, from Native Americans to bison, got killed off when Europeans came to conquest this new world. But corn helped the colonists survive; it grew and thrived in many places and climates. (Ironically, the Native Americans shared their corn knowledge with colonists, who without it would have died, only to have the colonists kill the Native Americans.) Corn can be eaten "green," dried, stored or ground into flour. It's no wonder corn is as invaluable as we believe it to be today.  
4. MARRIED TO MAN
-Corn was quite lucky that the colonists had favored it. Without anyone to plant it, it would have become extinct in a matter of time. Maize is not a wild plant; its ancestor teosinte is a weedy plant without ears. The plant lost its capability to reproduce itself in order to capture more nutrients in its stalk. This mutation was only successful because humans began to plant it, nurture it, and fall in love with it.
5. CORN SEX
-"Corn was the first plant to involve humans so intimately in its sex life." The male organs of corn are located at the top of the plant and releases up to 18 million pollen grains per plant--that's 20,000 grains per potential kernel. Obviously corn doesn't want to die out. After one of these grains of pollen finds its way to the ovary by way of style, the nucleus divides in two: one for the top and one for the bottom of the kernel. Fifty days later, and the kernels are mature. Because of this reproduction, humans are very involved, and corn can grow in a multitude of places. And now that corn has become genetically modified, and hybrid corn has become available, more corn, in more places can be eaten by more people. Yum!

SECTION ONE: INDUSTRIAL CORN

Now, Pollan begins his journey on the discovery of four meals. The first one? Industrial. This section is all about corn, but not the sweet corn we think about. No, this is about the industrial, genetically-modified, hard corn that creates everything from caramel color to corn starch. And if you thought you only ate corn during the summer, or for Thanksgiving, think again.

Introduction: Our National Eating Disorder

"What should we have for dinner?"

We didn't always eat McDonalds.

The whole book revolves around this "simple" question which we now understand is quite complicated. Pollan breaks down four meals from four different sources and explains to us what we actually eat, where that food comes from, and why we choose to eat it. He dives into the evolution of the way Americans eat. Why did small American farms disappear and give way to McDonalds, TV dinners and fruit imported from across the world? As Pollan states the facts that millions of dollars are spent on diet books and programs every year, Americans eat 1/5 of its meals in cars and 1/3 of children are fed fast food every day, he makes himself less shocking when he states that America has a national eating disorder!
Humans are, by nature, omnivores. We eat plants, and we eat animals. Perhaps that is the reason we have such a hard time finding what's for dinner--there are so many choices! We aren't stuck to one food, like the eucalyptus leaf-eating koala. We need a multitude of foods to get all the vitamins, minerals, protein, fat, calories, and sugar we need. As the food industry races to make more protein bars, diet pills, fast food chains and snacks, our diet is once again changed and our stability is gone. We are constantly confused by labels: "range-fed," "natural grill flavor," "not butter butter," "organic," "no trans fats" and "TBHQ." I mean really, what is all this, and where did it come from?
As it turns out, Pollan thinks our nature of eating changed sometime after World War II, when we became a nation fed by fossil fuels, instead of by the sun. If you think that more food produced by fossil fuels is a good thing, then you are quite wrong. Pollan proves this to us by taking us through four meals:
1. The focus is all on Zea mays, industrial corn. Where it comes from, what it turns into.
2. The "organic" "local" "range-fed" "pesticide free" and "biological" food. What the difference is between all these terms, and where did they come from?
3. A meal made of only locally grown plants and animals.
4. The hunter-gatherer meal; Pollan collected, grew and caught everything he was ate. When was the last (or rather first) time you've ever done that?
And so, as Pollan writes of monocultures, the history of food, industrialization and nature, we are enlightened of the food we eat and the disorder that has tainted America. I am ready to enlighten myself in the hope that I can finally take pleasure (hopefully) in the food I eat!

My AP Biology 1st Quarter Project

For senior year, I decided to take AP Biology. Our first project of the year is to is to read a book and write a blog on every chapter, so I chose The Omnivore's Dilema: A Natural History of Four Meals (copyright 2006). Written by Michael Pollan and published by the Penguin Group, this book was recomended to me by my teacher herself. As I am vegetarian, I hope this book will give me insight on the food I eat, and the food I choose not to eat. Let's begin!