After reading books like these, I'm not sure what to eat anymore.

Michael Pollan, a sort of food journalist, doesn't always give you the kind of clear-cut answers you'd like if you're reading books like this in order to learn what's healthy for your body and what's not. However, here are two important things I did learn:

#1 - Eating only one thing is not good for you in the long run.

#2 - Corn is in nearly everything we eat these days.

America grows corn. The American government pays for its farmers to grow corn. Corn syrup goes into an alarmingly high percentage of our daily foods. Our farmed-fish and cows subsist on corn. Hell, some of our cars run on corn!

CORN!

Another issue is the nitrates used to grow all this corn. Because it's less physically demanding, farmers spread chemical nitrates over their fields. To ensure a good crop, they overcompensate. All this excess washes into our water system, contaminating our drinking water and destroying fish habitats. The Gulf of Mexico spreading outward from the Mississippi Delta is fucked.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is one of those books I've been hearing about for years. In the past, I've read other Pollan books and they were good, but for some reason I held off on this one. Maybe it was like that character in Lost holding on to a copy of Our Mutual Friend, the only Dickens book he hasn't read. I knew this book would be special. I wanted to wait and savor it. I also knew it would be slightly depressing. I wanted to be ready for it.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Pollan is hopeful and allows for the light at the end of the tunnel. He's also willing to try new things like hunting and vegetarianism. He gets his hands dirty and that's what I like to see in my journalists.

Fantastic book! Recommended to all!

There's a reason that this book is as influential as it is. It is an incredibly well written account of the way our societies view food and food production with just enough personal accounts and opinions to make it feel interesting and personal rather than scientific and dull. I really enjoyed how the book was structured and how clearly Pollan's passion for food came through in every chapter and most of all how willing he was to get involved in the less appealing aspects of mass food production. I found the third part where he attempts to make a meal only using ingredients that he has hunted or gathered himself really interesting to read and it makes me curious to know if I could do something similar as well.

The only negative I have is a small one, I wish the book wasn't so America-centric. It makes sense that it is and it would be impossible to include all the differences that different cultures have in terms of food but I think it would've definitely been interesting to compare the way American's eat to the way people in other countries eat and produce their food.

5/5 stars

I was resistant to reading this book because I’m not an omnivore, and also I thought that Pollan’s book The Botany of Desire was brilliant and I suspected I would not feel as fond of this one, which is certainly true. He does write well, but I didn’t find that this book had the eloquence or elegance of the other.

The sub-title of this book could read: It’s Really Ok To Eat Dead Animals, Really It Is. Which I realize for most people it is. But eating flesh foods and other foods made from animals such as dairy and eggs is simply what the vast majority of this book’s readers and the population as a whole do; it’s not an unique argument.

But, I loved the fungi chapter and the corn section. The chapter on mushrooms I’m sure I enjoyed so much because a close friend of mine has told stories of her rural Indiana upbringing and of the very small morel patch they have on their property. So it was really fun for me to read about the foraging/hunting of the mushrooms, including local morels. (The author lives about 30 minutes drive from me and I recognized many of the locations in the book.) The corn section (about the deliberate infusion of corn products into just about every processed food) made me determined to cut way down on the processed foods that I often eat: the one real way this book changed me, not an insignificant one.

A good part of this (apparently beloved) book seemed to me to be the author’s belabored argument that it’s perfectly fine to eat animals. His treatise looked like his attempt to avoid cognitive dissonance (his term although I was already thinking of it like that) so that he could continue to eat in peace as an omnivore, along with about 97% of the U.S. population; being omnivorous is the dominant paradigm. Anyway, his waxing poetic over the glories of killing and eating animals did not sway me. It’s interesting that Pollan continually rebuts his own arguments, but I wasn’t convinced his questioning was as honest as he wanted it to appear, as it seemed to me he already knew the answers he wanted to arrive at about being omnivorous. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he would agree with me about that.

Some of his facts and figures were off. When he talks about tens of millions of animals killed for food in the U.S. for instance; actually, the latest figures I’ve read are 11 billion every year, not including fish. Even the call to eat locally, which I usually subscribe to, is not to be so simplified. One contradictory example I can think of (this issue is not addressed in the book) is the consuming of products (chocolate, coffee, dried fruit, nuts) from the distant rainforest, which, in my opinion, is much preferable to continuing to cut down rainforest trees, and which the natives will allow if they can’t make their living from the rainforest in other ways.

I know my philosophy is shared by a relative few, but the fast food meals, the description which was intended to highlight the large amounts of corn products in all the foods, while I found that surprising and unfortunate, it was the cow and chicken parts of the meal that disturbed me the most. And, as far as the “idyllic” Polyface Farm, I truly wonder what they could do 100% plant products grown.

I'll never look at corn the same way again.

This book provokes a lot of thought about the origins of our food and the biological, political, social and economic implications of those origins. I liked that Pollan approached the topic journalistically, with admirably little in the way of political agenda. To structure his book, he uses the format of following the path of four finished meals from origin to plate - one McDonald's meal, one comprised of supermarket organic products, one from a "beyond-organic" self-sustaining farm in Virgina, and one he forages almost entirely on his own.

Pollan goes into food science labs and discovers how ubiquitous the use of corn has become in modern diets, and how corn-derived food systems are synthesized and refined into ever more variations to increase our usage and meet industrial demands for market growth. The McDonald's meal he and his family share, for example, ends up being comprised of over 70% corn or corn-fed product (from beef and milk cows fed corn silage and loaded with antibiotics when it sickens them, to corn starches used in buns and chicken nugget fillers, to the high-fructose corn syrup used to sweeten soda and milkshakes). Pollan makes a strong case for how corn and its refined offspring have contributed to the ever-expending girths of Americans in recent decades.

Next he looks at the organic market, examining the compromises that many organic producers have had to make to support the demands of national chains like Whole Foods, and what "organic" does and does not necessarily mean. He contrasts corporate organic production with a week he spends working on a farm in Virginia run by a maverick Christian/libertarian farmer who carefully manages a "beyond organic" operation of interdependent, high-yielding crops and livestock on his land. The story of how this farmer guides his farm in a sustainable, symbiotic cycle is absolutely amazing.

Lastly, Pollan goes off the grid completely in growing and foraging the means for an entire omnivorous meal - not only growing vegetables/herbs and learning how to scout for edible mushrooms, but actually learning how to hunt and shoot a wild pig in N. California (something my own husband recently did, much to our culinary benefit). The vast majority of people who eat meat will never even lay eyes on the living body of an animal they eat, let alone take responsibility for its demise; so I find a lot of honesty in Pollan's having taken that step in his exploration of the food chain.

Overall, this book rocked my world in terms of understanding our modern food chain and its impact on all of us both individually and as a society. As a result, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how I can improve both my diet and my contribution to local/organic food sources. I'm determined to find more ways to eat locally and organically, and I feel lucky to live in one of the best places to do so.

O carte foarte cuprinzătoare și bine construită.

Autorul este jurnalist și ne poartă cu el în călătoriile lui pe care le întreprinde pentru a afla sursele alientelor noastre.
Vânează, culege ciuperci, muncește la ferme, merge pe câmpuri, vizitează combinate zootehnice și împărtășește cu noi informațiile pe care le obține.

Un lucru nou pe care l-am aflat și care mi-a rămas în minte este termenul de literatură de supermarket care se referă la acele texte pompoase și uneori neadevărate pe care le găsim pe etichetele produselor pe care le cumpărăm din magazine, în special carne sau ouă.

Com exceção da introdução, que não me parece fazer justiça ao que vem a seguir (talvez tenha sofrido uns retoques pelo editor?), este é um livro excelente, muito bem preparado. Vê-se que o autor passou anos a trabalhar nele, entrevistando pessoas, visitando lugares e inclusivamente trabalhando em alguns deles, para melhor se inteirar daquilo sobre o qual iria escrever.

Apesar de retratar a realidade americana (sobretudo a primeira parte do livro, que analisa a produção agrícola e pecuária intensivas), o livro é igualmente relevante para leitores europeus, sobretudo numa época em que, cada vez mais, a alimentação nas cidades de todo o mundo se tornou tão homogénea.

Ao contrário daquilo que o título poderia sugerir, este livro não tem nada de manifesto ou de panfletário. Pelo contrário, está cheio de informação e de reflexões honestas do autor acerca da alimentação humana e da forma como ela nos integra (ou não) no ambiente em que vivemos. É um livro que nos faz pensar, e isso é muito bom.

First of all, what exactly is The Omnivore’s Dilemma? According to the author, there is a national confusion about knowing exactly where our food comes from and what propels us to choose one food over another.

If you are quite busy throughout the day, you might grab some fast food, a boxed meal, or something from a can. Convenience is key. This book does not argue if processed food is good for us; we all know the answer to that. It does, however, try to trace the food chain to find out where it all comes from. If you enjoy the TV show “Inside the Factory” on BBC, you will undoubtedly like this.

So, where does the book start? A farm, no doubt. Yes, but the crop of choice is used in almost anything and everything you can possibly imagine. Your food, your car, the textiles you walk on, and it can even be traced to the book cover you are holding in your hand.

This magical crop is

A mezza strada tra un saggio e un reportage sulle tre principale filiere che ci portano il cibo in tavola: industriale, bio e quella primordiale della caccia e raccolta.
Il tono è brillante e inframmezza gli aneddoti personali con gli studi e i libri letti dall'autore in merito alle varie tematiche. Dopo la narrazione delle prime due filiere si passa alla spiegazione del "dilemma dell'onnivoro" (mangiare o meno animali che sono esseri viventi, chissà se provano dolore o se hanno un'anima) e alla battuta di caccia al maiale e ai funghi per concludersi con la preparazione del "Pranzo perfetto" in cui è tutto a km zero o quasi e con filiera produttiva inesistente. Le vicende e i dati risalgono ai primi anni 2000 negli Stati Uniti per cui si parla di una realtà culturale e normativa diversa da quella italiana ed europea ma il libro ha il pregio è quello di farci riflettere sui costi di quello che abbiamo nel piatto, sulle trappole del consumismo e della pubblicità,sull'industrializzazione di processi locali.
Nella seconda parte, secondo me, l'autore perde un po' di obiettività e porta testimonianze ed esperienze a favore dell'essere onnivoro.

I really like Pollan’s writing style, he brings points home with simplicity, and he is able to cover a lot of ground without the writing feelings unnecessarily circuitous or blustery. More than that though, I like that he is willing to experience. I mean, that’s the very core of responsible journalism, Pollan goes and works on the farms, he helps slaughter chickens, he sits in tractors, he goes hunting and foraging, he throws himself bodily and emotionally into these experiences, and at each point I felt that he was incredibly honest with both himself and the reader about the impacts of his actions and his emotional state.

All in all I thought it was refreshingly non-biased, fair appraising look at industrial agriculture/ranching, industrial/artisanal organic agriculture/ranching, and hunting/foraging. I say that as a person literally smack dab in the middle of row-crop country (my husband and his family farms), as a gardener, and as a hunter.

I’ve long had a problem with the way we raise meat in this country, and the lack of connection between people and their food. Its one of the reasons that I do hunt and garden, and its also one of the reasons that I’ve mostly switched to plant proteins for all meals except supper. I am continuing to try and evolve how I eat, and it’s a learning experience and I don’t always get it right (I ate spaghettio’s twice in three days last week, no one’s perfect). But its hard to read this book without examining the role that we eaters have in the natural world. I am going to make a concerted effort to eat in-season vegetables except for those that I froze from my garden in the summer, and I’m going to try and rely on our game meats more. Despite reading much about early life on the prairie, somehow I had never considered that even meat was seasonal, or that foods grown out of season lack the nutrition that we think we are getting. They’re both very “duh” concepts, but its not something that I had really appreciated. Nor had I valued the waste of petroleum in shipping year round under-nourished produce from Argentina to the US just so that we could eat whatever fruit or veggie that we want, despite its lack of flavor.

Perhaps the greatest thing that came from this was the conversations with my husband. He listened to the audiobook while in the tractor, and it was great to talk to him when he came home at night about the ways agriculture has changed since Pollan wrote (advances in technology have changed the level of precision for farmers, becoming more environmentally friendly for those that upgrade), but also the ways that it could continue to change. What could we do as eaters, hunters, buyers, and producers in our local community? Books that foster conversation and change always get a 5 out of 5.

Absolutely recommend to everyone. Read those food labels. Speak out. We deserve, as buyers, connectivity and information about our food, and animals especially deserve better than what we manage for our convenience.

1)Corn is Bad, Grass is Good
2)Eat Seasonally, Eat Locally, Eat Humanely, & Eat Organically
3)Eat Sh*t and Die. Well, Actually, Eat Sh*t and Flourish.

Each of these would have been a more classy title for the book "Omnivore's Dilemma". To paraphrase another reviewer 'The dude structures this book by following the path of four finished meals from origin to plate - one McDonald's meal, one comprised of supermarket organic products, one from a "beyond-organic" self-sustaining farm in Virginia, and one he forages almost entirely on his own. This book tries to provokes a lot of thought about the origins of our food and the biological, political, social and economic implications of those origins, and for the most part, it is successful.'

So after reading this book I realize that maybe, just maybe, I don’t argue with people about food enough. Ever since I read Fast Food Nation and watched Supersize Me I have been pretty good about avoiding eating at Mc-stablishments and drinking soda. Knowing these efforts aren’t enough, but not having had the ...chutzpah ... to make the leap to full fledged, "morally superior" vegetarianism. I am way to lazy to manage an urban garden, -- preferring rather to watch one made on TV

OD presents, as a moral alternative to growing, actually hunting and eating wild game. The parts of the book that describe this stuff, although not seemingly not feasible, reinforced these previously formed notions about foraging. Still, it is pretty interesting to see the details fleshed out.

One thing discussed in the book that i hadn't internalized, and that makes sense when I think about it, is that going to whole foods and buying an organic Chilean artichoke in the winter can be a lot worse ethically than eating a fat juicy steak from a locally raised mature grass fed cow. I guess that the ethical answer culled from the book on how to shop food in the city is to buy at farmers markets or join one of these CSA’s. Take the extra step and get to know your farmer, know how they grow, know how they feed and treat the animals is the right thing to do. This seems like undue effort and cost but the ethical equivalent seems to be to hunt and dress bloody dead animals or forage for mushrooms in central park. In that perspective, the first options seems like less effort .

Este libro presenta un proyecto intimidante con un resultado impresionante: rastrear lo que comemos, desde el plato hasta el mismísimo sol, para darnos cuenta de que nuestra glotonería omnívora, sumada al número creciente de bocas por alimentar, nos está haciendo depender de muy pocas fuentes primarias (en especial del maíz) a un costo enorme para otras plantas y para el ambiente y de someter a miles de millones de animales a las más terribles condiciones de vida, mientras ponemos en riesgo nuestra propia vida.

Nos estamos comiendo el planeta y lo estamos haciendo muy mal; debemos reconocerlo. Este es el libro para entender por qué.

El texto se divide en tres grandes partes: el origen de la comida que obtenemos en supermercados y cadenas de comida rápida (comida de origen industrial que llaman); el origen de la hoy llamada "comida orgánica" (cada vez más industrializada como la anterior) y la comida basada en el pasto (especialmente los animales alimentados con él); y finalmente, y más ajena a la mayoría de nosotros, la comida obtenida por medios propios, en huertas, por recolección de bayas y setas y, no menos importante (pero cada vez menos moralmente aceptable) por cacería.

Si bien las “cadenas alimenticias” que describe el autor son especialmente aquellas de las que obtienen su alimento los habitantes de los Estados Unidos y, por la misma razón, una buena parte de lo que describe no aplica hoy al resto del mundo (especialmente a los países de hispano América, Africa y parte de Asía, que todavía son muy agrícolas) los datos generales que presenta sobre el origen de la comida que consumimos en el antropoceno, son simplemente increíbles. A eso hay que sumarle que son cada vez más las regiones del planeta que imitan la forma insostenible de producir alimentos del gigante del norte. Tal vez, por ello, el libro adquiera aún más relevancia con el pasar del tiempo.

Si pudiera resumir en un solo párrafo el contenido central del libro, usaría esta amalgama frases que el autor recoge en la Introducción:

"La pregunta acerca de qué comer acecha a todos los omnívoros y siempre ha sido así". Es por eso que "muchos antropólogos creen que si llegamos a desarrollar un cerebro tan grande y complejo fue precisamente para ayudarnos a lidiar con el dilema del omnívoro." Sin embargo, en tiempos modernos, "la industria alimentaria está muy interesada en exacerbar nuestra ansiedad ante lo que debemos o no comer para así poder aliviarla después con nuevos productos. Nuestro desconcierto en el supermercado no es de ningún modo accidental; la vuelta al dilema del omnívoro está profundamente arraigada en la industria alimentaria moderna".

Pero, ¿por qué ocuparse por el origen de nuestra comida es importante?.

Precisamente porque la industria ha desconectado nuestros cerebros omnívoros, de las fuentes de las que obtenemos la cornucopia de alimentos que consumimos.

Esto es especialmente cierto para la comida industrializada, definida por Pollan como "cualquier alimento cuya procedencia resulta tan compleja u oscura que requiere ayuda cualificada para desentrañarla".

Desentrañar el origen de lo que nos llevamos a la boca, con o sin ayuda de expertos, será crucial para que empecemos a entender el impacto que sobre nuestro propio futuro como especie, tiene nuestra glotonería.

Después de leer "El dilema del omnívoro", les confieso que cada que tomo un sorbo de refresco o me como una galleta no puedo dejar de pensar en el origen del sodio, el endulzante o la harina con la que se hicieron esas delicias, pero también en el costo que podría estar pagando el planeta por ellas.

La historia del maíz y como ha llegado a ser la base de la alimentación de centenares de millones de personas en el mundo (especialmente en los países industrializados), tal y como es contada por Pollan, es sencillamente impresionante. Del arbusto divino de los Mayas, con sus frutos pequeños y coloridos, a la mazorca "industrial" gigante y rica en almidón (que en esencia es una forma de azúcar muy compleja) del presente, parece haber un abismo de tiempo inmenso. Pero no hay tal.

Nos hemos convertido en Homo mays (humanos de maíz) en el lapso de unas dos generaciones. Lo peor es que la mayoría no lo sabemos y mucho menos somos conscientes del costo que está pagando la tierra fértil, en la que podríamos sembrar una inmensa cantidad de alimentos alternativos (repito, en especial en países como Estados Unidos) por esa dependencia.

Del maíz, hoy, viene el dulce de la mayoría de los alimentos que consumen los países ricos, pero viene también la carne de cerdo, vaca y pollo que consumen esos mismos países (que son también los que más comen y los que más desechos producen).

Lo que coma un gringo también debe preocuparle a un colombiano.

Hasta leer el Dilema del Omnívoro, me considere un admirador incondicional de Fritz Haber, el químico alemán que inventó, a principios del siglo xx, el proceso para extraer el nitrógeno del aire para después entregárselo más eficientemente a las plantas. Sí, antes de que me regañen, reconozco que también participo en la invención de los gases venenosos usados por el ejercito del Kaiser alemán en la Gran Guerra. Pero no por ello dejo de sentir admiración por un invento de esa magnitud.

Este invento dio inicio a la industria de los abonos artificiales, industria que salvo de la hambruna a cientos sino miles de millones de personas en el siglo xx (de allí mi admiración por Haber) y permitió, entre otras, que muchos de nosotros existiéramos en primer lugar y de que podamos hoy estar leyendo o escribiendo reseñas de libros (libros que son fabricados en su mayoría con la materia de árboles sembrados y abonados con el Nitrógeno obtenido por el proceso de Haber).

Pero, lo que en un momento salvó a la humanidad, hoy podría estar condenándola.

La agroindustria moderna es de tal escala que las demandas de Nitrógeno se han multiplicado exponencialmente desde los tiempos de Haber, y lo peor, una buena parte de ese Nitrógeno con el que estamos supuestamente alimentando los cultivos, esta terminando en ríos, en gente y en el mar.

Cuando termina en la gente (especialmente en niños), impide que las células de la sangre lleven efectivamente el oxígeno al resto del cuerpo, produciendo el denominado síndrome del bebe azul.

Cuando termina en el mar, el nitrógeno produce una proliferación excesiva de algas que acaparan la luz y crean zonas muertas alrededor de la desembocadura de los grandes ríos.

No solo es entonces la basura, objetos desechados y metales pesados; también es el supuesto alimento para las plantas que comemos, lo que está acelerando la muerte de enormes porciones de océano, especialmente cercanas a la costa.

Todo esto sin mencionar como la comida que consumimos es también una fuente importante de emisiones de gases invernadero y por razones muy diversas.

Según el libro, aproximadamente el 20% del petroleo que consume Estados Unidos, se emplea en la producción y transporte de la comida. Allí, para producir 25 kilos de maíz se necesita medio galón de petroleo. Cabe entonces preguntarse ¿si prescindimos de los combustibles fósiles, de que nos alimentaremos o como llevaremos la comida hasta los supermercados?. Una pieza adicional del intrincado rompecabezas de un mundo "descarbonizado".

Otro motivo central en el libro, y no por razones románticas, es la calidad de vida de los animales de granja de los que obtenemos la proteína animal que consumimos. No es un secreto para casi nadie las cada vez más precarias e insostenibles condiciones en las que vive el ganado, los cerdos y las aves de corral que producen la carne que comemos como si no hubiera un futuro.

Pollan hace un par de interesantes ejercicios, relacionados con la vida de los animales en los grandes cebaderos de los Estados Unidos e incluso en las granjas de pollos supuestamente "orgánicas", y lo que muestra es simplemente abominable. Como dice el dicho popular "si te gustan las leyes y las salchichas, nunca preguntes como preparan una".

Y no se trata solo de pensar en la calidad de vida de los animales. No es solo cuestión de animalismo. "Habitamos el mismo ecosistema microbiano que los animales de los que nos alimentamos y todo lo que ocurre en él nos ocurre también a nosotros" y nuestra manera insostenible de criar animales de granja, hacinarlos y matarlos está cambiando ese ecosistema microbiano de formas impredecibles.

Para citar un ejemplo bien actual, solo piensen en el origen de algunos de los más peligrosos virus que han empezado a circular por la Tierra. En muchos casos esos virus pasaron a los humanos desde el ecosistema microbiano de animales de granja bien o mal "cultivados".

Pero no todas son malas noticias.

El panorama que presenta Pollan, al llevarnos a un recorrido por algunas granjas en los Estados Unidos que están utilizando modelos alternativos de explotación de los pastos (¡la hierba! ¡que cosa más increíble es esta planta! - o grupo de plantas) y de los animales, que, viviendo con mayor libertad se alimentan de ella, es esperanzador.

Y no solo son vacas. En el libro descubrí que las gallinas y otras aves también pueden "pelechar" en campos de pasto, no comiendo la hierba directamente (aunque algunas aves lo hacen), ese es trabajo para los rumiantes, pero si las larvas que crecen en las heces de estos últimos.

Hierba que obtiene la energía del sol y que es abonada por vacas, que a su vez se alimentan de ella para después cagar alimentando insectos y posteriormente a gallinas y más hierba. Un maravilloso circulo virtuoso que podría potenciarse hasta alimentar a una buena parte de la población de omnívoros Sapiens.

Pero para lograr esta utopía "pastoril" se necesita un cambio de chipset: comer menos carne (no renunciar necesariamente a ella), comer alimentos producidos cerca a dónde vives, cuidar los bosques aledaños a las praderas, hacer más praderas pero con buenos criterios de sostenibilidad (y no a lo bestia como pasa en la amazonía colombiana), etc.

Justamente fue el capítulo dedicado al pasto el que más esperanza me dio de todo el libro. Espero vivir lo suficiente para ver la utopía que describe ese capítulo aplicada a gran escala.

En fin. Aquí podría seguir gastándome los pocos caracteres que me quedan y aún así no lograr transmitir exhaustivamente los mensajes claves que hacen que leer este libro sea indispensable para cualquiera de los omnívoros que lo leen.

Pero ¿acaso hubo algo qué no me gusto del libro?. Pues bien, el texto tiene el tono típico de los libros escritos por periodistas o ensayistas norteamericanos, es decir, usa historias muy personales, anécdotas del propio autor y su familia, historias fuera del tema central del libro. A mí, personalmente, no es que me guste mucho este estilo, pero en este caso resulta suficientemente honesto y espontáneo para soportarlo.

Dejen pues de comer esa galleta que llevan rumiando hace rato, consigan el libro y empiecen a leerlo.

I bought this book, because I had thouroughly enjoyed Michael Pollans "Cooking".

But here I give up.

I have read around 100 pages about corn. I learned a lot I didn't know before, but unfortunately I didn't care about my newly acquired knowledge.

Also the book is completely US-centric, which makes it for me as an European not quite so interesting.

This book is outside of my scope of interest, therefore I refrain from assigning a rating.