Teaser Tuesdays: HFCS and the Omnivore

This, like Booking Through Thursday, is a new book meme that I think I’ll take for a test run on the ol’ blog. It’s called “Teaser Tuesdays” and comes from the Should Be Reading blog. So, without further ado, here’s a Beta Test for Bryan’s Book Blog:


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I am currently reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Food. I received a free copy from Western Washington University. I will be attending the Master’s Program there (in the English department) and as part of the Western Reads program, each incoming undergraduate student will be given a copy of Pollan’s book and it will be one of their texts in their Composition 101 class. As I have been awarded a Teaching Assistantship at WWU, I will be teaching Omnivore’s to freshmen.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
(New York: Penguin Books, 2006)

Trade Paperback, 450 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9780143038580, US$16.00

MY TEASER: “Since 1985, an American’s annual consumption of [High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)] has gone from forty-five pounds to sixty-six pounds. … Read the food labels in your kitchen and you’ll find that HFCS has insinuated itself into every corner of the pantry: not just into our soft drinks and snack foods, where you would expect to find it, but into the ketchup and mustard, the breads and cereals, the relishes and crackers, the hot dogs and hams” (104).