< a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143038583?tag=agaboo-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0143038583&adid=0JGARDMCER6F1DWTYDMJ&" rel="nofollow">The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals </a>. Most of us are at a great distance from our food. I don't mean that we live "twelve miles from a lemon," as English wit Sydney Smith said about a home in Yorkshire. I mean that our food bears little resemblance to its natural substance. Hamburger never mooed; spaghetti grows on the pasta tree; baby carrots come from a pink and blue nursery. Still, we worry about our meals -- from calories to carbs, from heart-healthy to brain food. And we prefer our food to be "natural," as long as natural doesn't involve real.

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan writes about how our food is grown -- what it is, in fact, that we are eating.