In many ways, I feel like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is the companion reader to Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation,” a book that first sent a shockwave throughout the American food industry in 2005, by holding up a mirror to our current eating habits. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” written by Michael Pollan and published in 2006, raises the stakes by broadening its scope: although Americans can avoid the drive-thru if they so choose, our ability to avoid the litany of industrialized corn byproducts — such as high-fructose corn syrup — presents a far more daunting challenge.

Personally, I don’t have the energy for too much soapboxing within these pages, and besides that, both “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “Fast Food Nation” were bestsellers, so the word is already out, at least among the literate. I will point out, however, that both books share a grim undertone — to say the least — harking back to the great tradition of Upton Sinclair’s seminal 1906 meat-packing exposé, “The Jungle.” Unfortunately, the American food industry has developed an entirely new set of problems over the last 100 years.

In terms of sheer readability, I would argue that “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” becomes less of a page-turner as it progresses. The first section, based upon the vicious cycle of corn production, is a must-read for anyone who purports to care about what they eat. For me, this section is easily on par with the great chapter on McDonald’s in “Fast Food Nation” (the clear highlight of that particular text, in my opinion). To be fair, I also enjoyed the lengthy middle section of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” which highlights the über-sustainable Polyface Farm in Swoope, VA.

By the third and final section, however, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” had begun to wear me a little thin. Ultimately, I attribute this situation to my own ever-shortening attention span, but since I have heard similar sentiments echoed by other folks, I feel that this criticism is noteworthy, if not petty. Although the third section remains relatively brief, it also remains less engaging than the earlier sections. After all, the message of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” has already become painfully and depressingly clear by the book’s end: high-fructose corn syrup is basically evil, and the sustainability of “organic” farming has become debatable.