A Change in My Food Worldview

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

For the second time.

Back to back.

I finished it for the first time before I arrived in Belém, and never had a chance to trade it for something else at a hostel book-swap. Since the boat ride up the Amazon can get a tad tedious (more on that later), I just started reading the book again.

What does this have to do with my travels, other than illustrating that there are aspects of long-term travel that are so mind-numbingly boring that I'd be willing to re-read a book I'd just finished?

Just that, after drumming the material into my head for a second time, I'm glad I'm spending a significant amount of time away from the messed-up, corn-fed, North American industrial food complex.

And that my anticipation towards eating grass-fed Argentinian beef has risen tenfold.

(Incidentally, I swapped out The Omnivore's Dilemma for John Krakauer's Into Thin Air, just in time for a sixteen-hour bus ride to Buenos Aires in a day or two. Hopefully, I'll finish it by the time I reach the Andes and it prevents me from making any really stupid climbing decisions.)