A Book and some Controversy

Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food, is a book with much controversy surrounding it in the Agriculture industry. He is clearly against the commercialization of farming and believes that farms should still be the old family farms of the early 1900s. He shows that he is against these farms and refers to them as ‘factory farms.’ I believe that we have to start moving to the commercializing of the dairy industry in order to keep up with the growing demand of dairy products. According to the Wisconsin Agriculturist Magazine, large dairy farms produce 55 percent of the milk currently in the market. However, due to land availability, the large farms are mostly on the west coast of the United States. Farms on the west side of the nation average about 1,200 cows per farm. Farms on the eastern side of the nation usually average about 50 cows in size. California is also the state with the most dairy production.

Michael Pollan also talks about other practices in his book. He starts off his book by saying “eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” This is his basis for almost the entire book and he obviously feels very strongly about it. Within the first paragraph, he mentions that eating meat will not hurt but it should be looked at as more of a side dish. He argues and asks if a “steak from a feedlot steer that consumed a diet of corn, various industrial waste products, antibiotics, and hormones still a ‘whole food’?” He believes that since farmers got away from feeding and raising their animals on a grass pasture, the quality of the meat has greatly decreased. He states that animals feed for meat production have been altered to put weight on too fast and this leads to low quality meat. I also do not agree with Pollan on his opinion about meat and how it should be eaten. I feel that meat should still be a main dish and should also be eaten at every meal.