Anyway, since the last book I read was by Michael Pollen, I decided to continue with him and read this book. It was full of disturbing facts about the food chain in the United States. My head was spinning every time I trudged through a section of the book. In the first section he describes how corn became a staple crop in all processed foods in the U.S. as well as in the majority of meat in the U.S. since it has become the grain of choice to feed to animals even when they are not hard-wired to eat it (cows are supposed to eat grass in case you didn't know). In the second section he describes the meat industry in all its horror. I think anyone who has any interest in what kind of food they put in their body is already well aware of how these mass production slaughterhouses work. What he also does, though, is go to a farm that is getting it right by allowing Nature to do the complex work it would normally do if we humans didn't come along and mess it up on occasion by trying to over-simplify. He also turns the term 'organic' over on its head and will make you think twice about what that really means. In the final section, he discusses the ethics of eating animals and the ethics of eating vegetables (apparently animals like mice and woodchucks still die when grains are harvested so no diet is completely cruelty-free).
In each section he prepares or eats a meal that is related to the information he shared in that section. In the first section he eats a completely processed meal from McDonalds, with a nice dose of high fructose corn syrup. In the second section, he buys local, 'organic' ingredients and makes a meal to share with others. In the final section, he actually hunts and gathers for his meal with the help of a local man.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. Some parts did run a bit long for me and there are some repetitive points that I felt I had already heard so many times from other sources. Some of the more informative sections for me were the ones about corn, organic foods, and the ethics of eating. I like that at the end of each section he brought it back to the common denominator of eating a meal - something we do on a daily basis. If you are not already hyper-aware of what you eat, you may be after reading this. Even though I am finding it challenging to keep up momentum when reading non-fiction, I'm glad I stuck with it for this book.
