¶ … Omnivore's Dilemma In Michael Pollan's book he touches on many issues relative to what humans eat, and in the process he spends time covering the poor eating habits of Americans and the likely reasons for the obesity crisis in the United States (think carbohydrates). His narrative includes animal flesh that is produced on so-called "factory farms" -- including pig meat he proudly kills himself -- and in doing so he raises moral and psychological issues in a very well-presented book. His moral perspective comes through between the lines and between the issues, but his approach to the subject of vegetarianism comes with a sprinkle of cynicism and a splash of cryptic tokenism for good measure. Thesis: A broader view of vegetarianism -- and the reasons why millions of people (including 15-year-old Matthew) eschew animal flesh -- would have given Pollan's book more contemporary vitality and could have addressed the obesity crisis in America more realistically.

Morality and Vegetarianism

Strangely yet interestingly, Pollan discusses the gourmet chicken dinner he prepared with food from an idyllic organic farm in Virginia shortly after describing the way factory farms sever the artery of the chicken, not the head. Was the real point of his chronology the dramatic juxtaposition of the two approaches to killing chickens? Maybe he used that contrast in killing styles to justify his passion for animal flesh. Meanwhile, Pollan suggests that killing one chicken that has been raised in a place "…of almost classic pastoral beauty" is healthier and more moral than the slaughter of myriad chickens in a factor farm, and he certainly...

But notwithstanding his reasons for the contrasts in slaughter techniques, and for the glowing positives he presents vis-a-vis the self-sustaining farm, at the dinner table Pollan gives short shrift to fifteen-year-old Matthew and Matthew's decision to pass on Pollan's chicken dinner -- a meal that Pollan calls "out of this world." An alert reader wonders why Pollan didn't take the time to explain why Matthew became a vegetarian. Okay, Matthew is "…fifteen and currently a vegetarian" (italics by writer), which seems to suggest that Matthew may not be a vegetarian for long, that it is likely a teenager's phase.
The implication is that Matthew may not be a vegetarian in a week, or a month; but who's to say that Matthew won't in fact be a vegetarian for life? In making that point, Pollan is basically critiquing adolescence in a negative way. He may be a brilliant professor at the University of California at Berkeley and his book is no doubt extremely well crafted (and has received positive critical response), but his narrative smacks of elitism when he addresses the youthful vegetarians of this world.

If conventional wisdom has it that young people that embrace vegetarians are just going through a phase, or that they have eating disorders and are obsessed with their weighty, that is disappointing and it is a generalization that won't hold up to scholarly scrutiny.

A recent study published…