The Omnivore's Dilemma

I am an omnivore and so are you. Our dilemma is what we are going to eat. Only one creature that I know of doesn't have that dilemma and that is the koala bear. The koala eats eucalyptus leaves for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. Because of this, author Michael Pollan writes, the koala brain is very small. The koala doesn't have to think about what to eat so it doesn't need a very large brain. "The Omnivore's Dilemma - A Natural History of Four Meals" was a terribly interesting book for me to read. The author writes about the ingredients in four meals. One meal is from McDonalds; cheeseburger, fries, coke and chicken nuggets. Another is a home cooked meal of chicken, vegetables, bread and pie. Another is an organic meal of chicken, chocolate souffle, salad and potatoes. The last meal is a hunted/gathered meal of California boar, morel mushrooms, fettuccine, bread made with gathered, natural yeast, wine and Bing cherries. Pollan is a great author and I learned a lot of new information. I know a lot more about corn that I ever thought I could know. Corn is subsidized by our government and it costs more to grow that it is worth. We have piles and piles of excess corn. To get rid of the corn, we try to turn it into gasoline or feed it to animals that are not designed to eat corn. Cows are not designed to eat corn. Cows are made to consume grass. When cows eat corn, their rumens cannot handle it and they become ill. That is why meat eaters are getting extra antibiotics in their diet - from the cows that are treated for eating an unnatural diet. Now the food industry is trying to get salmon to eat corn. Corn is in many products - oil, sugar, guar gum, MSG, starch. Just about every processed food has at least one form of corn in it. I found the book fascinating. I went to the grocery store tonight and this book has already influenced my buying habits - I bought the select brand of milk without the growth hormones. I also bought organic raspberries and organic grapes (they were actually cheaper than the regular raspberries and grapes). If I could, I would pay extra for non-genetically modified soy products.