Chapter Sixteen: The Omnivore's Dilemma

1. GOOD TO EAT, GOOD TO THINK

Monarch butterflies don't have
to deal with the omnivore's dilemma.

"The blessings of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he's pretty much on his own."  Cyanide, oxalic acid, toxic alkaloids and glucosides are just some of the poisons that line the plants and fungi available for us to eat. For other species who eat only specialized foods, like monarch butterflies, they view one thing (milkweed) as food, and everything else as poison. There is no thought going into nutrition or poisons. The butterflies eat the milkweed safely, and that's it. But what about omnivores? "Whenever they encounter a potential new food they find themselves torn between two conflicting emotions unknown to the specialist eater, each with its own biological rationale: neophobia, a sensible fear of ingesting anything new, and neophilia, a risky but necessary openness to new tastes." Most species, like rats, use their digestive tract as a laboratory, in which a small amount of the new food is tested. But humans don't really do that anymore, we rely on outside information. And so the omnivore's dilemma happens everytime we reach for a new food, from a wild mushroom to a new organic TV dinner. And for some (like me), it extends to "determining whether or not it is ethically defensible to eat meat--that is, whether meat, or any other of these things [mushrooms, TV dinners], is not only good to eat, but good to think as well."  
2. HOMO OMNIVOROUS
Natural selection  has equipped our bodies to handle a remarkably wide-ranging diet. Our omnicompetent teeth can both tear animal flesh and grind plants (our jaws are similar). Our stomachs can break down the meat protein elastin with a specific enzyme it produces. Our varied diets stem from our need for a wide variety of chemical compounds to keep our metabolism healthy--from plant compounds such as vitamin C to animal proteins like vitamin B-12. This differs from nature's specialists, who often have highly specialized digestive systems that need nutrients from less sources. To go along with this, small brains go with small guts and big brains go with big guts--ominivores needed a brain to store which foods were good, and which were bad to eat. The price of dietary flexibility is much more complex and metabolically expensive brain circuitry. When simplified, bitter taste is a warning for poison, where as sweet is often a good sign (sugar = carbs = energy). But now, cooking, one of the omnivore's greatest tools, has obened up more edible foods available. And as our energy and food source grew (besides fruits and grasses, many plants had evolved so as to not get eaten, cooking helped us get around this), so did our brains. So cooking and food opened up our "cognitive niche." Thanks, food.
3. THE ANXIETY OF EATING

The danger of raw fish is
minimized when eaten
with wasabi, an anti-
microbial.

"Being an omnivore occupying a cognitive niche in nature is both a boon and a challenge, a source of tremendous power as well as anxiety." Humans are able to survive all over the world, on different foods, because they (we) are omnivores. But although our senses help us determine what is good to eat and what is bad, we mainly rely on culture and our brains. Cuisines, like Asian fermented soy and rice, or meso-American corn, lime and beans are all food rules that not only make biological sense, but are healthy. "Anthropologists marvel at just how much cultural energy goes into managing the food problem." I don't; if you can't eat a healthy, unpoisonous meal, then you not only die, but you are evolutionarily unsuccessful. Besides, we aren't guided by natural instinct, and we have lost touch with much of nature. What's stopping us from eating poisonous mushrooms or other human omnivores. It must be the customs, taboos, rituals, culinary conventions, table manners and traditions found all over the world. It makes sense to me.
4. AMERICA'S NATIONAL EATING DISORDER
"Perhaps because we have no such culture of food in America almost every question about eating is up for grabs. Fats or carbs?  Three squares or continous grazing? Raw or cooked? Organic or industrial? Veg or vegan? Meat or mock meat?" Because we are a relatively young country, we don't have food customs to guide our eating choices and lead us in the healthy decision when it comes to food (okay so we have McDonalds, I don't think that's what Pollan was talking about). Sure this suits the food industry, but it doesn't suit me, or Pollan. And then we each have our own diets. Pollan has his own example, but I'm going to use my family. A typical dinner will find me eating some vegetarian version of the same meal or a frozen dinner, my littlest sister eating a lettuce-less salad and pizza, my mom eating a smaller version of the meal my dad has, and my middle sister eating a different meal, because she doesn't like what we're having. Five meals for five people, that is our family dinner. "So we find ourselves as a species almost back to where we started: anxious omnivores struggling once again to figure out what it is wise to eat."