The Omnivore’s Dilemma
The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a book written by Michael Pollan. He suggests that the choice for omnivores is so vast that a dilemma is caused because the omnivores find it difficult to decide what to eat due to the fact that they have a never-ending choice. Pollan suggests that life was easier when food was seasonal and it was just a matter of planting and sowing crops according to the seasons. Now, because of preservation methods, life has become more complicated instead of vice versa.
In part 1 of the book: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the author visits a corn farm because he states that most meals are derived from corn. Corn is a staple food used for animals as well as for humans because of its simple components and popularity in many main meals of today.
We can observe an example of not allowing things to be done naturally, is when the author visited a corn farm and observed a steer prior to slaughter. The steer was fed corn where before, in years gone by, it would have fed on grass as this is a more natural diet for the animal. The quality of life of the animal as well as the end product, the meat which we in turn eat, is of inferior quality to the life the steer would have had and consequently the meat which we would have eaten had the deer been allowed to feed naturally.
In conclusion, Michael Pollan blames antibiotics and drug use in animals and food for the deterioration of our food and our health. We would be much healthier and have a much better quality of life if our food had no additives and no unnatural substances added to it. The animals (cows, sheep etc.) also would have benefitted from a better quality of life with much less diseases and sicknesses had they been allowed to graze naturally.
Instead of improving the quality of life, we have regressed it by trying to improve it unnaturally and we have made it worse instead. If we take a look at the diseases which afflicted the farm animals some fifty odd years ago, we will realize that they (and also us) were much better off before that we are today. Trying to make unnatural changes to animal fodder has only brought about more sickness and more unhealthiness. Had we left things to nature, we would be a much happier and healthier race today.
The end message of the first chapter is that herbivores have a much better quality of life and humans would have been far better off if they had actually remained herbivores. It is an intriguing aspect for study which is corroborated by the author in his excellent narrative.
