This Sustainable House

Recently I picked up a copy of Michael Pollan’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” A book I have been meaning to read for some time.

This book examines the basis of the industrial food system in the US. A system which is not only prelevant in that country, but most of the western world.

It demonstrates the precarious reliance of our entire food network on a few crops, notably corn and soya beans, and the incredible success the food marketing machine has had in overcoming the ‘fixed stomach’ of it’s consumers. This concept revolves around the fact that no matter how abundant food is, there is only so much we can eat. However, even given this biological imperative, the system has encouraged us to eat more calories than necessary. This has lead to the improbable state where over 1 BILLION people suffer from over-nutrition, eclipsing the 800 MILLION suffering from malnutrition. (UN 2000) Certainly not a state that I was previously aware of.

This troubling tome will change they way you view your food forever. It deals with the numerous additives and the advanced processing of our basic foods. It shows how the simplest items in our shopping cart are adulterated and discusses the motivations of the multiple-national machinery for this duplicity. In the words of one of the corporations explaining why we are better off eating synthetic foods;

…Natural ingredients, the company pointed out rather scarily, are a “wild mixture of substances created by plants and animals for completely non-food purposes – their survival and reproduction.” These dubious substances “came to be consumed by humans at their own risk.”

However in addition to painting a picture of sickly animals, and plants, supported by the millitary/industrial machine; it also paints a picture of hope for a more secure future. A future that doesn’t relay on the output of laboratories or the derivatives of petrochemicals, but one in which plants and animals can live in a truly symbiotic relationship; naturally adding to the fertility of the soil; and harvesting the only truly free resource we have available… Sunlight.

I don’t think that there are many individuals who could read this book and not be changed by the experience. If you have ever wondered about what making an ethical choice about your food involves, then you have to read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”