[MUSIC]
JENNIFER PELKA: Almost everyone's heard of "The Omnivore's Dilemma".
DAN BARBER: I look at "Omnivore's" as like the Bible for chefs.
JENNIFER PELKA: It's the most important book on food politics of the last fifty years.
JENNIFER PELKA: When I first read "Omnivore's Dilemma", it was this very buzzy book.
People were writing about it in the New York Times, in the Wall Street Journal.
So, it was kind of impossible to avoid this book.
TOM COLICCHIO: What it really did for me and probably a lot of other chefs is really just
open our eyes to what was happening, what was really out there.
"CRAZY LEGS" CONTI: I was concerned because as a major league eater we take a lot of flak.
But I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.
KATIE LEE: There's so much information about food.
I'll be honest, this book kind of stresses me out.
DAN BARBER: We have a vested interest in making sure that more people read "Omnivore's"
[MUSIC]
MICHAEL POLLAN: The genesis of "Omnivore's Dilemma" goes back to some reporting I was
doing for the New York Times magazine.
You have to remember I was an Easterner and had not really experienced the scale of modern
industrial farming and that's when it occured to me that Americans didn't know where their
food came from.
And it would be interesting to do a kind of detective story following the food back to
the source.
KATIE LEE: Basically, the book describes the state of food in America by exploriong three
different food chains.
"CRAZY LEGS" CONTI: Corn.
JENNIFER PELKA: Grass KATIE LEE: And the forest.
"CRAZY LEGS" CONTI: The first section of the book, which I'd imagine was the eye-opener
for most people, is about investigating the industrial cost of making everything out of
corn.
JENNIFER PELKA: When you walk into a grocery store, when you walk into any of those aisles,
all you are seeing everywhere, whether or not you know it, is corn.
TOM COLICCHIO: It was surprising and eye-opening how far we've come and how far we've removed
ourselves from this idyllic idea of a farm and this word sort of brought it right home
front and center.
JENNIFER PELKA: In the second part of the book Michael Pollan takes us to this small
family farm called Polyface.
"CRAZY LEGS" CONTI: No fertizilers are used.
Everything works through the relationships that nature has designed.
KATIE LEE: Basically, it all boils down to poop because the chicken poop is fertiziling
and the chickens are eating something out of the cow's poop that they get their nutrients
from.
DAN BARBER: Free ecological resources.
The grass, the sun, the photosynthesis.
The cow that turns this grass into delicious fat and meat for us.
That's the true definition of sustainability.
"CRAZY LEGS" CONTI: The third section is about hunting and gathering.
JENNIFER PELKA: We learn what it's like to hunt for your food and eat it.
And all of the ethical problems that come along with that.
KATIE LEE: I really don't think I could do it.
I don't think I could pull a trigger and kill a dear.
"CRAZY LEGS" CONTI: I've never shot a gun, but if you tell me there's a pig that's gonna
be pancetta at the end of it, then let's go out there and shoot this thing.
[MUSIC] JENNIFER PELKA: The biggest impact that "Omnivore's
Dilemma" has had is one, people are really absolutely considering the types of food that
we're eating.
And two, I think people are really taking action.
I don't think people used to really talk about raising chickens in their backyard in Brooklyn.
I don't think that was realistic ten years ago.
DAN BARBER: When you feel smarter about a subject, you don't generally feel engaged
to make change.
The power of "Omnivore's" is that you feel empowered.
TOM COLICCHIO: When people start really thinking about how animals are being raised and they
say to themselves I want to continue to eat meat but I don't want it raised like that.
I need the alternative.
DAN BARBER: The most dangerous thing about the industrial food system is that the food
doesn't taste good.
To have flavor you have to have all the minerals and micro-vitamins that come out of healthy
soil.
So, flavor and nutrition are sort of the same subject.
TOM COLICCHIO: When you look at some of the things going on today, especially with diabetes
and heart disease and obesity is the same problem.
Obesity is not from over-eating it's from eating junk.
Just from eating better food we can take care of a lot of this.
KATIE LEE: I'm really fortunate because in the area where I live, we have so many farms.
But the rest of the country doesn't necessarily get to have that same experience.
JENNIFER PELKA: It's a lot more expensive to be shopping directly from a farmer.
Realistically, so many people in the United States can't afford to eat that way.
But, atleast the NPR listening set can feel better about themselves.
DAN BARBER: I don't think we can afford to eat from industrialized food system now.
And we're just beginning to see the effects of a food system that's essentially broken.
It's not a food system that we should be investing more in.
MICHAEL POLLAN: I didn't tell you what to do in this book.
I was very kind of non-prescriptive.
And a lot of people want a book to end with a pretty clear prescription.
TOM COLICCHIO: I guess the first question I asked Michael is can it really be changed?
Is this something that could work on a larger scale?
When you're talking about the amount of people that we're feeding it's a huge ship that needs
to be turned and I don't know if you can turn it.
MICHAEL POLLAN: Well, one meal at a time is how you, I think, turn this ship.
I mean it's not gonna happen overnight.
MICHAEL POLLAN: I would hope at some point in the future this book will seem quaint.
That things will have changed so much in the food system that people will read it as a
historical curiousity.
Realistically, I don't think that's gonna happen.
I mean we'll get as far as we can but it's gonna be a lot of little maneuvers.
Cheap food is baked into our economy so we're gonna need pressure from both the consumer,
voting with his or her fork, and it's going to take changes in policy.
Who knows if people will still be reading it in 10 years, let alone 50 years, but I
hope it will continue to incite questions in people about these really ordinary every
day decisions that are very important.
There's a lot at stake at the table.