The Forager’s Dilemma
Christopher K. Johnson
DeVry University

The Forager’s Dilemma In the book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, which was written by Michael Pollan, I read a story about a man’s journey to find a meal he could call his own. Part III, “The Forager” is about reconnecting with the earth and its nature. From pages 277-286, the text will give the reader a taste of what it is like to forage. Pollan is a self-proclaimed “Great in-doors man” and only has a few fond memories of dealing with nature. He has never owned or shot a gun nor has he ever hunted mushrooms due to his fungi phobia. Even with all his lack of natural experience, he is set on showing the reader how different it was to hunt, gather, and grow our own foods rather than depend on the present day agriculturalist. After struggling with everything that has happened throughout the story, he never gives up, even though his doubt gets the best of him in the end. In the first three chapters of Part III were well written and a good read for anyone interested. The purpose of this review is to give you my point of view in hopes to provide a good evaluation for my fellow readers to compare their notes with. There were quite many facts in this reading that caught my attention. One fact in particular was how agriculture brought about infectious disease and malnutrition. Anthropologists venture to say that the typical hunter-gatherers work week was about 17 hours long. These work ethics typically gave them a longer life span and left them more energetic than the agriculturalist, who have just recently, within the last century or two, recaptured the carnal stature and longevity of their much older ancestors. Another interesting bit of information was the fact that we as humans, were not tolerant of Lactose in our original diets. Over time, we gained our tolerance. So, I guess that means the ones who are Lactose intolerant used to be considered the standard of their time. Thirdly, I learned that the term, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” refers to the food choices we have to make every day. It is the conundrum we put ourselves through with every dietary, neophilic, and neophobic food choice. In this writing, I felt that one of the features that stood out the most was in the detail of the author’s story. He would talk about summers he’d be on the beach at low tide, digging for steamers with his mom, unearthing them by hand through air holes left by the clams in the sand flats. Then when the clams were fed up, they’d squirt him and his mother with self-preservation in mind. This was one in a bunch of detailed segments in this story. What I also enjoyed was his organization. I don’t like to be confused while reading because I feel like if I don’t have a true grasp of what is going on in a book, the author will lose my interest. In “The Forager”, he broke down the five W’s and the H. While still holding on to his major points, he was able to answer just about any question one would have before it was asked. Thirdly, the book has a catchy title and well laid out first paragraph. For a lot of us, this is where the temptation begins. Although I wasn’t automatically drawn to the story, the organization and detail of it kept me reading. There were a few things that I didn’t particularly enjoy about the book. One is for certain; the title of part III was not catchy at all, to me. This was a discouragement and I can’t sit here and tell a lie by saying I would have read it if I didn’t have to. Two, I am a fan of the usage of words in a book. However, I feel that there was an over usage of words in this part of the book. It almost felt like they had a thesaurus right next to them while they were writing this story. I just feel as if the author was trying too hard. Last thing on the list, the amount of in-text citation seemed to be a little excessive and not too informative. It seemed as though he was just trying to fill in blank spots in his text. After my full review of “The Forager”, I would give it four out of five stars. Although the title of Part III was of no interest to me, the story itself, put me right next to him while he was hunting or searching for plant life in the forests of California. With every other sentence, I pictured myself where he was, at the exact moment he spoke a word, and enjoyed that immensely. His story line was very organized and helped me to visualize his main point through the whole narrative. I was able to get past the over usage of his words and follow the story with no problem, but for other readers, either he has to use simpler words or inversely, the reader must acquaint themselves with the said wording of this book. This was a very well formatted and descriptive read. So, if you like a good point of view, non-fiction book, then you will love “The Forager”. I would most definitely recommend this book to my friends and associates. I only wish that the title lived up to the paragraphs below.