Omnivore's Dilemma (16,17)

Chapter 16 of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (Pollan) detailed the evolutionary pains and powers of having near-complete freedom of choice in food and diet; while other creatures seek only one food source and become evolutionarily entwined with it (in life and death), humanity can move about with the greatest ease from one appetizing bounty to another, rarely pulling a hair when one staple disappears because another suitable one is doubtlessly nearby. People will never run out of food options; this fact might ensure the overall survival of homo sapiens from famine of any one staple, but presents an imponderable complexity about what is best for one to eat. What is healthy and unhealthy has changed more in the last century than in the entire history of man previous, rigorously turning the world of food upside-down and inside-out, the world of the food-eaters turning likewise.

Chapter 17 described the "rules" of eating animals, the rules themselves being unstable and not set to a fine line by any one party overall. Some people advocate freeing humanity from animal cruelty forever by becoming vegan; this would perhaps ensure a more utopian and natural style of living and eating, but would ultimately lead to the extermination of millions of animals born to be food, and a sensless killing at that, as no food or gain would be obtained. Others push for a Polyface Farm future, where animals are treated humanely, and one gets to see everything about the chicken they buy for dinner, from its happy pecking about in a pasture, to its death, defeathering, and sale on a counter. Sustainability lobbyists look down such a road as well. Still more people content themselves with the low-priced industrial food model, where animals are treated as machines and nothing else for the sake of more food, despite all its health risks and shortcomings to all except the grand businesses involved. One thing's for sure: none will win outright, and the war between them all will definitely serve to increase the ever-worsening omnivore's dilemma.