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!