Because he is engaging directly with his food, he has to grapple with more basic questions, like the ethics of killing and eating animals, and the methods by which humans decide what foods are edible in the wild, particularly in the case of mushrooms.

This problem is especially acute in a country with endless food choices—many of which are highly processed and far removed from their natural origins. In tracing four different modern food chains and their resulting meals, Pollan explores the web of connections made by food. This is a uniquely human problem, since humans are omnivores by nature who can eat most plants and animals and, therefore, are faced with the challenge of deciding what to consume.Michael Pollan’s Food Rules began with his hunch that the wisdom of our grandparents might have more helpful things to say about how to eat well than the recommendations of science or industry or government. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. Now in a new edition illustrated by artist Maira Kalman, and expanded with a new introduction and nineteen additional food rules, this hardcover volume marks an advance in the national dialogue that Food Rules inspired.

In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. Pollan learns to forage for chanterelles, goes fishing for abalone, picks cherries from a local tree, fava beans from his garden, and procures wild yeast to use in bread. Climax: Of the four meals chronicled by Pollan, the fourth and final one is the most climactic, since it is the product of the most direct and local food chain possible. Due to its efficiency as a plant, and its diverse utility for food, alcohol, and fuel, corn (species name Zea mays) has evolved alongside people very successfully, changing itself to meet human needs. Pollan’s food-focused investigative journalism joins a long line of non-fiction works in this genre, beginning most famously with Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906).His farm guru is Joel Salatin, an independent-minded small farmer who runs Polyface, his small family farm in Virginia.

What if we are all just pawns in corn’s clever strategy game, the ultimate prize of which is world domination? Chosen by the American Horticultural Society as one of the seventy-five greatest books ever written about gardening, Second Nature has become a manifesto for rethinking our relationship with nature.Because most of what we’re consuming today is not food, and how we’re consuming it — in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone — is not really eating.

There isn’t an answer to how Americans ought to eat, but Pollan ends by emphasizing that food is a person’s most direct engagement with the natural world. In doing so, he explores the implications of the choices Americans make within the modern food system, ultimately seeking to answer what Americans should eat, for their own sake and for the sake of the planet.Singer is a utilitarian, meaning that he believes the most ethical action is the one that maximizes “utility”—in the case of animal rights, maximizing the happiness of animals and avoiding hurting them. The meal that concludes this section is takeout from McDonald’s and includes among other foods a serving of Chicken McNuggets.