Omnivore's Dilemma Part 1 Reading guide
Introduction: Our National Eating Disorder
Pg. 1- What Should We Have For Dinner? “How did we ever get to a point where we need
investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the
dinner menu?”
Pg. 5- “Certainly the extraordinary abundance of food in America complicates the whole
problem of choice”
“Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us”
Pg. 10- “By replacing solar energy with fossil fuel, by raising millions of food animals in close
confinement, by feeding ourselves those animals foods they never evolved to eat, and by feeding
ourselves foods far more novel than we even realize, we are taking risks with our health and the
health of the natural world that are unprecedented.”
Pg. 10- “Our eating also constitutes a relationship with dozens of other species- plants, animals
and fungi- with which we have co-evolved to the point where our fates are deeply entwined.”
Pg. 17- “Except for the salt and a handful of synthetic food additives, every edible item in the
supermarket is a link in a food chain that beings with a particular plant growing in a specific
patch of soil (or, more seldom, stretch of sea) somewhere on earth.”
Pg. 18-19- “There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and
more than a quarter of them now contain corn.” Make a collage- showing the items that are
made of corn in the average American supermarket.
Pg. 19- Why are Mexicans (descendents of the Mayans) referred to as “the corn people”?
Pg. 21- What is the C-4 trick by plants?
Pg. 22- What does the higher ratio of Carbon 13 (isotope) to Carbon 12 in a person’s body tell
us?
Pg. 22- How much wheat flour do we eat compared to corn flour? (Americans)
Pg. 23- Explain why some people regard agriculture as a brilliant evolutionary strategy on the
part of plants and animals?
Pg. 24- What was the “biotic army” that the white man brought to the new world?
Pg. 25- Explain how corn won over the wheat people because of its versatility.
Pg. 26- Why is corn considered to be “married to man”?
Pg. 30- For to prosper in the industrial food chain to the extent it has, corn has to acquire several
improbable new tricks- What did corn have to do?
Pg. 1- What Should We Have For Dinner? “How did we ever get to a point where we need
investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the
dinner menu?”
Pg. 5- “Certainly the extraordinary abundance of food in America complicates the whole
problem of choice”
“Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us”
Pg. 10- “By replacing solar energy with fossil fuel, by raising millions of food animals in close
confinement, by feeding ourselves those animals foods they never evolved to eat, and by feeding
ourselves foods far more novel than we even realize, we are taking risks with our health and the
health of the natural world that are unprecedented.”
Pg. 10- “Our eating also constitutes a relationship with dozens of other species- plants, animals
and fungi- with which we have co-evolved to the point where our fates are deeply entwined.”
Pg. 17- “Except for the salt and a handful of synthetic food additives, every edible item in the
supermarket is a link in a food chain that beings with a particular plant growing in a specific
patch of soil (or, more seldom, stretch of sea) somewhere on earth.”
Pg. 18-19- “There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and
more than a quarter of them now contain corn.” Make a collage- showing the items that are
made of corn in the average American supermarket.
Pg. 19- Why are Mexicans (descendents of the Mayans) referred to as “the corn people”?
Pg. 21- What is the C-4 trick by plants?
Pg. 22- What does the higher ratio of Carbon 13 (isotope) to Carbon 12 in a person’s body tell
us?
Pg. 22- How much wheat flour do we eat compared to corn flour? (Americans)
Pg. 23- Explain why some people regard agriculture as a brilliant evolutionary strategy on the
part of plants and animals?
Pg. 24- What was the “biotic army” that the white man brought to the new world?
Pg. 25- Explain how corn won over the wheat people because of its versatility.
Pg. 26- Why is corn considered to be “married to man”?
Pg. 30- For to prosper in the industrial food chain to the extent it has, corn has to acquire several
improbable new tricks- What did corn have to do?