Precis
Most vegetarians eat how they eat because they do not believe it is ethically right to slaughter animals and eat them, but do animals even feel pain when being slaughtered? Does it feel ethically wrong to eat farm animals fed healthy grass and that live in a healthier environment? Rather than the animals fed on industrial farms? In this chapter i answer several of these questions a long with a look at how some people compare the discrimination of animals to the discrimination of races: being a "speciesist "speciesist"
Gems
"That's not because slaughter is necessarily inhumane, but because most of us would simply rather not be reminded of exactly what meat is or what it takes to bring it to our plates."
"Half the dogs in America will receive christmas presents this year, yet few of us ever pause to consider the life of the pig-an animal easily as intelligent as a dog-that becomes the christmas ham"
Thoughts & Questions
I enjoyed this chapter in the sense that it gave me a good insight about why and how people think about meat when they are eating (even if they are aware). This is someone like me, who knows where my mcdonalds hamburger is coming from after taking a bite out of it and paying no mind to the disgusting nature of how the cow i am eating was raised and slaughtered. I also found it interesting how Pollan argued that eating (organic?) meat can help the enviornment.
Michael Pollan - The Omnivores Dilemma - Chapter 18
Precis
After a few failed attempts to shoot a wild pig (my rifle was jammed several times) i was able to kill my prey. Hunting for my own food gave me excitement and pride, but when "cleaning" the pig i was disgusted by my own actions. Even further, when i received an email of the pictures i had taken with the dead pig i felt a moral disapointment. I came to terms with the understanding of taking the role of a hunter, but still could not make out what caused myself to take a picture with such a disgusting site, with a cheep-ish grin.
Gems
"I felt a wave of nausea begin to build in my gut. The clinical disinterest with which i had approached the whole process of cleaning my pig collapsed all at once: This was disgusting"
"The fact that you cannot come out of hunting feeling unambiguously good about it is perhaps what should commend the practice to us"
Thoughts & Questions
I thought the comparison between how Pollan felt when killing the pig (a sense of pride) and when he actually saw the picture of it himself (next to the dead pig) was interesting because i personally would feel the same way taking the picture and looking at it. Either way i would feel guilty. But i can see how Pollan felt this way when looking at the picture, a picture is a picture and becomes stuck in your mind when it especially a powerful one.
Michael Pollan - The Omnivores Dilemma - Chapter 19
Precis
Unlike my experience hunting wild pigs, finding morsels of mushrooms required my attention to detail more than i thought. Mushrooms are mysterious and are not easy to find. Choosing the right mushroom is never easy, some are hallucinogenic, some are healthy and some can even cause death. After gaining enough confidence
to find these mysterious mushrooms i was able to pick out a load of them.
Gems
"Without the pop-out effect, finding one's dinner would depend on chance encounters with edible species and, of course, on fruit, the only important food source in nature that actually tries to pop out."
"As it happens the answers to most of my questions about mushrooms, even the most straight forward ones,
are elusive. Indeed, it is humbling to realize just how little we know about this, the third kingdom of life on earth."
Thoughts & Questions
I have never liked the taste of mushrooms but if i were to ever eat a wild mushroom how would i know if it was poisonus or not?
Michael Pollan - The Omnivores Dilemma - Chapter 20
Precis
Finally i was ready to make and serve my meal. With help from Angelo i created a feast of all the things i had hunted and gathered. While i did add certain things to the meal and broke a couple rules i had created for myself (and even fell behind in my cooking at a point) i still accomplished what i mainly set out to do, which was for me, the perfect meal.
Gems
"Here, i realized, was the West Coast's answer to the Jersey Meadowlands, a no-man's-land where a visitor would not be wrong to worry about stumbling upon criminal activities or the washed-up corpse of a murder victim."
"I suddenly felt perfectly okay about my pig-indeed, about the whole transaction between me and this animal that i'd killed two weeks earlier"
"I realized that in this particular case words of grace were unnecessary. Why? Because that's what the meal itself had become, for me certainly, but i suspect for some of the others, too: a wordless way of saying grace."
Thoughts & Questions
I enjoyed reading how Pollan analyzed fast food in saying that it is a "reverse thanksgiving" and without fast food, food would just be..well..food. I also liked how Pollan reflected on his achievements in cooking his meal that he made from scratch but was still thoughtful and admitting enough to point out his flaws in the food.
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