Recommended by: Mr. Brady

Plot: A 2006 New York Times Book of the Year, The Omnivore’s Dilemma takes a detailed look at the science and philosophy of eating. Instead of looking at food in a dietary sense, the book examines how Americans eat, where our food comes from, and the ramifications of increasingly processed food. While this may not SOUND terribly exciting, it is beautifully written with a detailed analysis how food gets onto our plate or into our mouth. The book focuses on four meals: a fast food “dinner,” a seemingly organic meal bought at Whole Foods, a meal grown and prepared on a working farm, and finally a meal where the author actually hunts wild boar and forages wild mushrooms for himself!

Why read? Some people may not want to know how food BECOMES food. This book focuses on those who do, and spares no detail. The book has a journalistic style, as the author attempts to uncover the effect that Americans have on the food chain that we are indeed a part of. If you enjoyed Al Gore’s look at the environment in An Inconvenient Truth, this book maintains a similar style. Even if one disagrees with his politics, this book allows the reader to examine how what we eat and how we eat truly determines who we are.