ENGL-135 Advanced Composition Professor Edmondson
William McGuire
In Part 3, Chapters 15, 16, and 17 of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan explores looking foraging for different foods, the ethics of hunting animals and harvesting the meat from them, and giving a brief look into what brought about the paradox of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Chapters 15, 16, and 17 bring up a lot of good points about foraging and hunting and Pollan provides through detail and research on the topics, but upon reading these chapters you find it lacking content that will keep you engaged and the material can be pretty dry at times while you get a little bit of disorganization from random topics. Chapter 15 of Omnivore 's Dilemma was a short chapter on how Pollan is preparing to make a meal from all of the foraging groups. Fruits, vegetables, fungi, and meat were the components that made up this meal, he wanted to find and gather enough from each group to make his first. Pollan had just moved to California, so his unfamiliarity with the area was a disadvantage, so he decided to hire a companion to help him on his quest. Chapter 16 takes the reader to a different venue, Pollan discusses the beginnings of The Omnivore’s Dilemma through a research paper that was written in 1976 by Paul Rozin and titled The Selection of Foods by Rats, Humans, and Other Animals. Pollan expresses how similar we are to rats that we are omnivores, but unlike rats, we have lost our instinct of choosing food and follow advertisements as our guide. He then goes on to suggest that the problems stem from capitalistic gains and the pursuit of revenue. In chapter 17 we are taken back to Pollan on his foraging quest he started in chapter 15. This chapter looks more at the ethics of hunting and eating animals that are not processed in processing plants like we are so use to seeing. Pollan brings up reasoning on
Cited: Pollan, M. (2006). The Omnivore 's Dilemma. New York, New York: Penguin Books.