The Omnivore's Dilemma

“Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.”

Throughout the work, Pollan emphasizes the interconnectedness of food, nature, and culture. In the theme “The Logic of Nature vs. The Logic of Man,” nature and man function as two warring entities. Agriculture attempts to capture and tame nature. Despite this dichotomy, Pollan insists that what humans know as culture is informed by the natural world. Culture is an extension of nature rather than its opposing force.

“To wash down your chicken nuggets with virtually any soft drink in the supermarket is to have some corn with your corn.”

The book’s attention to the grass crop in the opening chapter is executed with intention. Pollan shows how corn has infiltrated and dominated the global food market. He asks his readers to participate in a thought experiment which reveals the substantial number of food and non-food products corn has pervaded.

“So the plague of cheap corn goes on, impoverishing farmers (both here and in the countries to which we export it), degrading the land, polluting the water, and bleeding the federal treasury, which now spends up to $5 billion a year subsidizing cheap corn.”

The theme “The Cost of Convenience” highlights how industrialized food production has widespread ramifications. In Chapter 2, Pollan explores how the domination of corn production has led to many negative outcomes, including those described in this passage, as well as the vanishing Iowa population, alteration of natural landscapes, and contributions to global warming.