Quotes by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Explore a curated collection of 52 quotes by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Discover timeless wisdom, insightful thoughts, and memorable words that have inspired readers around the world. Browse through the gallery below and click on any quote to read more.

Americans today spend less on food, as a percentage of disposable income (10%), than any other industrialized nation... — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Planted, a single corn seed yielded more than 150 fat kernels, often as many as 300, while the return on a seed of wheat — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Farmers facing lower prices have only one option if they want to be able to maintain their standard of living, pay their — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By 1900, European scientists recognized that unless a way was found to augment this naturally occurring nitrogen, the gr — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
[Smil] estimates that two of every five humans on Earth today would not be alive if not for Fritz Haber's invention of t — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Though they won't say, it has been estimated that Cargill and ADM together probably buy somewhere near a third of all th — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By far the biggest portion of a bushel of American commodity corn (about 60% of it, or some 50k kernels) goes to feeding — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
A mere four giant meatpacking companies (Tyson subsidiary IBP, Cargill subsidiary Excel, Swift & Company, and National) — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
What gets a steer from 80 to 1100 pounds in fourteen months is tremendous quantities of corn, protein and fat supplement — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
It was the same industrial logic- protein is protein- that made feeding rendered cow parts back to cows seem like a sens — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Every day between now and his slaughter in six months, 534 [Pollan's steer] will convert 32 pounds of feed into four pou — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
The ratio of feed to flesh in chicken, the most efficient animal by this measure, is two pounds of corn to one of meat, — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Wet milling (to produce starch) is an energy-intensive way to make food; for every calorie of processed food it produces — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Today it [high fructose corn syrup] is the most valuable food product refined from corn, accounting for 530 million bush — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Try as we might, each of us can eat only about 1500 pounds of food a year. What this means for the food industry is that — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us ever pause to consider the life of the — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
But imagine for a moment if we once again knew, strictly as a matter of course, these few unremarkable things: What it i — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Reversing the historical trajectory of human eating, for this meal the forest would be feeding us again. — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Even connoisseurship can have politics, Slow Food wagers, since an eater in closer touch with his senses will find less — Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals