The Omnivore's Dilemma

Introduction

In the article “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, the author explains what the omnivore dilemma is and how it affects omnivores. The omnivore dilemma is that people don't know what is bad or good to eat anymore. When I say “bad” or “good”, I mean if it' not healthy or healthy. On page 3 of the article, it said “we know longer know for sure which foods are good for us and which aren't…” this quote supports my answer because it is explaining that our community doesn't know what to eat anymore to keep them healthy. Also on page 3 it said, “thanks to the food industry, we don't even know what it is we're eating. Sometimes it even seems like we've forgotten why we eat.” This quote best supports my answer because it is explaining that the food industry is the ones who is causing the omnivore's dilemma because they put unhealthy ingredients into the food that we think is healthy. In my opinion I think that it is hard for us to choose food in the supermarket because if we want to be healthy, most of the food in the supermarket has HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) which is not healthy. The omnivore's dilemma is a very serious problem in the United States. But if we keep being healthy, there's going to be no problem.

Discussion

What exactly is the Omnivore's Dilemma? The dilemma is a human one because humans are omnivores, meaning we eat both meat and plants to survive. Omnivores eat everything and sometimes everything isn't really good for you. Carnivores who only eat meant and herbivores that only eat plants have to focus on finding just those kinds of foods and don't have the dilemma humans have of eating food which keeps us alive but doesn't always keep us healthy.

In the section “Is That Food?” the author basically talks about how the food we eat compares to the food animals eat. Also, the difference between a humans diet compared to an animal's diet. Likewise, the author says that we need certain things that we just can't get because the “industrial food chain” (p. 86) gives us too many choices. Pollan states, “Ultimately our omnivore's dilemma is rooted in our nature as human beings—but we've made our choices much harder than they used to be” (p. 86). This is basically saying human problems start with simple ways of doing things and then people who make food make it harder to eat the right way. In “The Modern Omnivore” it's saying that over thousands of years our eating habits have really changed. They used to follow rules and habits that made eating healthy much easier. It was based on culture. Likewise, it says that today the modern omnivore has no food culture to fall back on. We no longer know what foods are good and not good for us. Pollan says that “we need to recover the skills and knowledge people used to have” (p.87). In the section ...