Michael Pollan Omnivore Dilemma

Michael Pollan in 2006, published a work that has to some degree changed the way that people eat, or at the very least attempted to change the way that we think about the food we eat. (Shea 54) Pollan demonstrates through fundamentally modern rhetoric the relationship that people, and more specifically American’s have with food and how very distant we are from it. ("History, Old Favorites in" B08) To some degree Pollan, others like him and internationally challenging food shortages and even worse food born illnesses and scares are changing the way that food is understood with regard to an international and national food traceability and accountability movement. (Popper 365) Pollan challenges the “industrial food chain” looking at ingredients, finished food products and other issues to try to source out the distance between man and his or her food. His investment in the idea goes much further as he explores through rhetoric several scenarios regarding obtaining and cooking meals. Those scenarios including attempting to show American’s a better way, or at least shock us out of our food stupor by first enjoying a meal from McDonalds (sourcing it almost exclusively to corn an overused and bizarre food product and petroleum products), producing a meal from a famous “organic” food retailer, challenging this niche industry. The third meal is a meal made from only items found on a utopian Virginian farm, and then Pollan produces a meal from only foraging. Through all these scenarios he explores, from a very basic standpoint, all the inaccuracies, misrepresentations and challenges that our food industry places on the ethic of living on the earth and sharing it with others.
The rhetoric of the work is engaging as the writer brings the reader to a very basic level of view, seeing the pasture from the perspective of the cow, for instance, or simply the exploration itself. The work is actually what one would call a documentary in print as one can see the author traveling

Cited: Crumbpacker, Bunny, “You Are What You Eat.” The Washington Post April 9, 2006; BW09. Dinovella, Elizabeth. "Think Globally, Eat Locally." The Progressive Nov. 2006: 41. Flannery, Maura C. "Plants in Production." The American Biology Teacher 70.1 (2008): 51. "Food for Thought; What We Eat, from Source to Table." The Washington Times 30 July 2006: B08. "Food Really Does Grow on Trees, You Know." Daily Post (Liverpool, England) 1 Feb. 2008: 12. "History, Old Favorites in Collection of Food Essays." The Washington Times 10 June 2007: B08. Leppman, Elizabeth J. Changing Rice Bowl: Economic Development and Diet in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005.