In “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” Pollan explores the meaning of the book’s title and reasons why Americans struggle to make healthful food choices. Although it is in the best interests of food corporations to market food so it will capture a greater share of the consumer’s hunger, Pollan suggests that Americans are especially susceptible to “food faddism.” Unlike other cultures, Americans lack a culture of food to help them navigate the omnivore’s dilemma.

Pollan explains that the curse of the omnivore is also its strength. An omnivore can eat nearly anything, but

when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he’s pretty much on his own.

Unlike people, a monarch butterfly can only eat milkweed, which may sound dull but has the benefit of being reliably safe. Omnivores like humans and rats are required to constantly choose what to eat. Pollan cites studies by Paul Rozin that find that rats test food by eating a small amount and then waiting to see whether it produces a harmful effect, such as a stomachache. It is difficult to poison rats because they are capable of remembering which foods are poisonous. As omnivores, whenever people encounter a new food, they face two conflicting desires: neophobia, a necessary fear of the new, and neophilia, a necessary love of the new.

To some extent, taste buds help people detect whether a plant is nutritious or toxic. Foods that taste bitter are often toxic, for example, but not always. Pollan points out aspirin is made from salicylic acid in willows. Humans are forced to rely on memory and communication to overcome the toxins that plants create to defend themselves from predators. Pollan points out that our ability to cook allowed us to access more plants and meat as food. For example, the cassava produces cyanide, but it can be eaten if cooked. Thus, some anthropologists have suggested that cooking is one of the most important tools that allowed the human brain to evolve.

However, perhaps the most reliable test of what to eat and what not to eat is found in a nation’s culture of food. For example, when Asians ferment soy, they are actually making it more nutritious. Americans do not have a stable culinary tradition, and Pollan suggests that their diet-related health problems are the consequence. Ironically, many American responses to this lack of tradition have produced food fads that led people to turn their back on carbohydrates or to chew their food one hundred times. Pollan cites the “French paradox,” in which the French can be found eating foods that are ostensibly unhealthful, such as wine, cheese, and chocolate, yet as a nation the French remain healthier than Americans. Pollan explains that the French have a culinary tradition that allows them to eat these foods without excess. In contrast, America’s “national eating disorder” leads them to make knee-jerk reactions that often prove harmful. Today, it seems that the market benefits from eroding cultural traditions, and Pollen suggests that the family meal is the latest victim: for many American families, it has been replaced by a different, highly processed, microwavable meal for each family member.