Tag: Industrial agriculture

An American supermarket boasts an average of 40,000 unique food products, yet this staggering abundance hides the origins of our food, forming the central thesis of Michael Pollan's *The Omnivore's Dilemma*. The book argues that this complexity has disconnected us from our food, creating a "national eating disorder".

Worldwide, over 74% of all farmed land animals are raised in intensive industrial operations, according to the New Roots Institute. Understanding where most of our meat comes from involves exploring a complex web of factory farming, global supply chains, and evolving consumer choices.

Over 60% of the world's food energy is supplied by a handful of major crops, revealing that the answer to where does the most of our food come from is a complex web of global production and trade, rather than exclusively local sources. This globalized system is dominated by large-scale farming in specific regions that feed a planet of billions.

According to research published by the National Institutes of Health, the transition from ancestral diets to modern food patterns has resulted in profound shifts, with an increase in obesity and chronic diseases. The changes in how we produce and consume food are vast, impacting everything from nutrient density to convenience and health outcomes.

In 2002, a period of heightened dietary confusion in America, Michael Pollan embarked on an investigation into the food system, which ultimately framed the main themes of *The Omnivore's Dilemma*. The book's central preoccupation is the problem of making dietary choices in a world of overwhelming options and obscured origins.

In 2024, the film *Food, Inc. 2* further highlighted the issues Michael Pollan's book originally exposed nearly two decades prior, revealing a food system that has become even more consolidated and opaque. In *The Omnivore's Dilemma*, Pollan reveals that the industrial food chain is fundamentally unnatural, unsustainable, and largely based on a single crop: corn.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global primary crop production reached 9.9 billion tonnes in 2023, showcasing remarkable efficiency and scale. This immense capacity drives the central question: do the benefits of food production outweigh the costs associated with it?