Le Dilemme des Omnivores - de Michael Pollan

Observatoire du Management Alternatif
Alternative Management Observatory
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Fiche de lecture


The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Michael Pollan
2006

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Jie ZHU – November 2010
Majeure Alternative Management – HEC Paris – 2010-2011


ZHU Jie– Fiche de lecture : «The Omnivore’s Dilemma» – November 2010 1Le Dilemme des Omnivores - Une histoire naturelle de quatre
repas

Cette fiche de lecture a été réalisée dans le cadre du cours « Grands défis planétaires »
donné par Denis Bourgeois, David Khoudour-Castéras et Thanh Nghiem au sein de la
Majeure Alternative Management, spécialité de troisième année du programme Grande Ecole
d’HEC Paris.


Penguin Books, New York, 2007
Première date de parution de l’ouvrage : 2006


Résumé : Le Dilemme des Omnivores traite de la relation entre les êtres humains et la
nourriture. Présenté dans une combinaison d'expériences de première main et de la pensée,
l’ouvrage de Pollan dévoile les secrets de la production alimentaire industrielle moderne et de
l'agriculture biologique à grande échelle. Ses histoires nous donnent un aperçu de la chaîne
alimentaire moderne commencée avec le maïs à bon marché et abondante.


Mots-clés : Nourriture biologique, Maïs, Production alimentaire industrielle, Agriculture


The Omnivore’s Dilemma-A natural history of four meals

This review was presented in the « Global challenges » course of Denis Bourgeois, David
Khoudour-Castéras and Thanh Nghiem. This course is part of the “Alternative Management”
specialization of the third-year HEC Paris business school program.


Penguin Books, New York, 2007
Date of first publication: 2006


Abstract: The Omnivore’s Dilemma talks about the relationship between the human beings
and the food. Presented in a combination of first hand experiences and thinking, Pollan’s book
reveals the secrets of modern industrial food production and large-scale organic farming. His
stories give us an insight of the real modern food chain that begins with the cheap and
abundant corn.


Key words : Organic food, Corn, Industrial food production, Agriculture


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ZHU Jie– Fiche de lecture : «The Omnivore’s Dilemma» – November 2010 2Contents
1. The author and his work ..................................................................................................... 4
1.1. A brief biography of the author .................................................................................... 4
1.2. Place of the work in the author’s life ........................................................................... 4
2. Summary of the book ........................................................................................................... 5
2.1 General outline of the book .......................................................................................... 5
2.2 Main points of reasoning and principal conclusions .................................................... 6
3. Critical comments ................................................................................................................ 9
3.1 Other authors’ opinion on the book .............................................................................. 9
3.2 Review’s author’s opinion on the book ........................................................................ 9
4. Author’s bibliography........................................................................................................ 11
5. References ........................................................................................................................... 12

ZHU Jie– Fiche de lecture : «The Omnivore’s Dilemma» – November 2010 31. The author and his work
1.1. A brief biography of the author
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at
the University of California, Berkeley. Born on February 6, 1955 in New York, he holds a
bachelor degree of Bennington College and a mater degree of Colombia University. Up till
now he has published six books most of which focus on the relationship between nature and
the human kind. His latest four books about food have made him The News York Times
bestseller. With The Omnivore’s Dilemma, he has won five book awards on 2007.
For most of his career time, Michael Pollan has been writing books and essays about “the
places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in the
1built environment.” Besides that, he is also a contributing writer for the New York Times
Magazine, and a former executive editor for Harper's Magazine.

1.2. Place of the work in the author’s life
The Omnivore’s Dilemma was first published in United States of America in 2006 and is
named one of the ten best books of the year by both The New York Times and the
Washington Post. It is a deep and revolutionary analysis of American way of eating, a
combination of first-hand experiences and scientific facts. The book has four hundred and
fifty pages in total and is mainly divided into three parts in which the author talks about
industrial, pastoral and personal food. With people getting used to the industrial way of
choosing food, this book pushes us to rethink the relationship between food, money and
human beings. The author talks a lot about the work of Paul Rozin, whose research on food
selection behavior may form the basis of Michael Pollan’s writing.

1
“About Michael Pollan”, Michael Pollan, http://michaelpollan.com/press-kit/ December 1, 2010
ZHU Jie– Fiche de lecture : «The Omnivore’s Dilemma» – November 2010 42. Summary of the book
2.1 General outline of the book

INTRODUCTION Our National Eating Disorder

I- Industrial – corn
- The Plant: Corn’s Conquest
- The Farm
- The Elevator
- The Feedlot: Making Meat
- The processing Plant: Making Complex Food
- The Meal: Fast Food
II- Pastoral- grass
- All Flesh Is Grass
- Big Organic
- Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pasture
- The animals: Practicing Complexity
- Slaughter: In a Glass Abattoir
- The Market: “Greetings From the Non-Barcode People”
- The Meal: Grass Fed
III- Personal – The Forest
- The Forager
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma
- The Ethics of Eating Animals
- Hunting: The Meat
- Gathering: The Fungi
- The Perfect Meal
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SOURCES
INDEX
ZHU Jie– Fiche de lecture : «The Omnivore’s Dilemma» – November 2010 5
2.2 Main points of reasoning and principal conclusions

In today’s world where industrial food has a dominating role, Michael Pollan is one of the
few who ask straightforward questions about what we should have for diner as omnivores.
Through his eyes, we see how the American government “forces” its citizens to chase after
cheep and tasteless food.

The human beings are corn
In recent decades, the food production chain has been accelerated to nourish more people
on less land and in shorter period of time. So American farms are now covered with corn,
cheap corn. Michael Pollan takes us to discover the food chain begun by corn which ends up
in almost all kinds of food the market provides to its clients. Corn is a species that can easily
survive and maintain more energy in the same conditions than other kinds of crops. Because
of that, if the animals are fed with corn, they grow faster. The American government clearly
sees the advantage of growing corn to make meat, instead of subsidize the farmers; they
provide allowance to the corn. Only farmers who grow corn can receive that sum of aid. The
result of the policy is the cheap price and large scale of production of corn.
In order to get this abundant corn, American farmers work hard on larger land with
expensive help like Monsanto’s Round Up seeds. They forget about the quality of the corns
they grow, the only thing they care about now is the number of bushels they produce. It is the
government’s policy who turns the corn into a commodity more than a kind of food. The
planters of corn are now the so called “agribusiness man”, but what did they get by the change?
Pollan spent some time with a normal American cultivator of corn, George Naylor, in his
farm. Through his first-hand experience, we get to know how the farmers of today are