50 pages 1 hour read

Michael Pollan

The Omnivore's Dilemma

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Important Quotes

Quotation Mark Icon

“Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.”


(Introduction, Page 10)

Throughout the work, Pollan emphasizes the interconnectedness of food, nature, and culture. In the theme “The Logic of Nature vs. The Logic of Man,” nature and man function as two warring entities. Agriculture attempts to capture and tame nature. Despite this dichotomy, Pollan insists that what humans know as culture is informed by the natural world. Culture is an extension of nature rather than its opposing force.

Quotation Mark Icon

“To wash down your chicken nuggets with virtually any soft drink in the supermarket is to have some corn with your corn.”


(Part I, Chapter 1, Page 18)

The book’s attention to the grass crop in the opening chapter is executed with intention. Pollan shows how corn has infiltrated and dominated the global food market. He asks his readers to participate in a thought experiment which reveals the substantial number of food and non-food products corn has pervaded.

Quotation Mark Icon

“So the plague of cheap corn goes on, impoverishing farmers (both here and in the countries to which we export it), degrading the land, polluting the water, and bleeding the federal treasury, which now spends up to $5 billion a year subsidizing cheap corn.”


(Part I, Chapter 2, Page 54)

The theme “The Cost of Convenience” highlights how industrialized food production has widespread ramifications. In Chapter 2, Pollan explores how the domination of corn production has led to many negative outcomes, including those described in this passage, as well as the vanishing Iowa population, alteration of natural landscapes, and contributions to global warming.