The Omnivore’s Dilemma: Part I: Industrial/Corn (pp. 15–119) review
In part I of the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan analyses industrialized food chain using corn as a major example. Majority of the American citizen’s access food from supermarkets which Pollan described to have air conditioning, machine lathed carrots and florescent lighting to be from the common, natural world. He establishes the origins of the food that is consumable. What do we take for dinner? The question has been confronting the majority since Stone Age but according to the author Michael Pollan, what we eat should determine survival. This section of the book analyses how industrial corn confronts us following eating choices, and the wellbeing of the environment sustainable to life on earth. It explains how humans have become reliant on corn practically not eating anything except corn. The content of Pollan’s work, in part I, does not meet many expectations following the bothering corn that we eat information. The content suggest that the corn that we use is not treated properly and the procedure to its final consumption. The industrialized corn chain begins in the heartland which forms the backbone of the country corn production. The farms have become the source of corn as factories processes it to an assortment of unrecognizable forms including the corn fed beef.
In “The Farm” of chapter II, the author conveys the narration of a corn farmer, George Naylor from Iowa, to help illustrate significance of the government policies, corporate industry and technological innovation on corn production. He relays out the disadvantage of overproduction of corn to the American farmer which indirectly or directly benefits corn exporters and corporations. Ironically, the rate of producing corn is hefty than the cost of selling it. Naylor is proficient of producing twice as much per acre. The author also addresses the concern on cone being prone to disease and insects following its growth in the same ground patch severally over the years. Corn is described to exist in several places including the wax that in the produce section coats other vegetables, in the supermarket where flooring and the wall board being made of corn.
It is also noticeable through the first three chapters that corn production tends to improve the use of pesticides and fertilizers. This increases pollution in turn to water and air. The cheap corn is also lucrative to fatten cattle preferably over grass and the raising of chickens bigger factories in comparison to farmyards. Corn is also considered to consume much more fertilizer when evaluated to other crops, therefore, befitting the emerging fertilizer producing companies. Pollan then vividly explains the continuous corresponding growth in chemical fertilizers as well as corn production. Corn plays a considerable role in Americans life over the centuries being the significant source of survival and food. Today it plays a role as an interchangeable commodity. Corn is no longer valuable as sustenance and most significantly for the ability to be applied in any use imaginable.
In the first three chapters, Pollan sets out to map out corn as an industrial food sequence following the products he comes across in the supermarket. In “The Farm,” Pollan manages draw where majority of the foods production takes place. However, upon reaching “The Elevator,” the impossibility of this task surfaces making it not to meet common expectations. He draws the distinction amid corn being a fungible commodity and a farmer’s bushels of corn. The much effort shown by Pollan in tracing Naylor’s corn to a final target proves its mixture with the corns from other farmers.
