Ch. 15,18,19,20

At the beginning of the book Pollan asks the question, "what should we have for dinner?" By the end of the book he has explored multiple aspects of how to answer that question in the healthiest and most efficient way possible. In the end he decides that by hunting, gathering, and preparing the meal himself it would be the best way to avoid the supermarkets and spending a fortune on groceries like most people do weekly. In a way I have a newfound respect for Pollan for choosing to forage for his meal, but I know that I probably wouldn't be able to be successful were I to attempt to do the same. I've always lived in a city and have never needed to forage for my own meals. My mom has always been the one to make a well-rounded meal for dinner every night and keeps the pantry stocked full of options. However, we rely heavily on the supermarket for all of the items we keep in the kitchen, and fast food restaurants when our schedules conflict.

In this last section of the book Pollan talks about the different foods that we can gather from nature and how difficult that can be. When hunting live animals there's always the potential that they can get away, and when gathering plants of fungi, as discussed in chapter 19, there's always the chance that they could be poisonous. Relying on nature today is also hard to do because of the limited amount that is left. Had we not become so industrialized over the years maybe the supermarket and food industries wouldn't have become such an essential part of everyday life and people could still live off of the land that we continue to destroy with the way we choose to live.