Where does your food really come from -- and what should you have for dinner? In this hour of Science Friday, Ira talks with author Michael Pollan about his new book, ' The Omnivore's Dilemma.' In it, Pollan traces four meals to their roots, following the food chain backwards.  "I wanted to look at the getting and eating of food at its most fundamental, which is to say, as a transaction between species in nature, eaters and eaten," Pollan says. "What I try to do in this book is approach the dinner question as a naturalist might, using the long lenses of ecology and anthropology, as well as the shorter, more intimate lens of personal experience."  We'll talk with him about how we get our food, from industrial processes to farming to hunting and gathering.

Plus, we'll hear about a new fossil find that may represent a direct ancestor for humans, some 4 million years old. The fossil bones, from a hominid species named Australopithecus anamensis, fill a gap in the fossil record between the 4.4 million year old Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus afarensis, which lived 3.4 million years ago. The fossil find was made in the Middle Awash region of Ethiopia. We'll talk with one of the discoverers about the find and what it means for the human evolutionary tree.

Call in with your questions and comments at 1-800-989-8255 (3-4 Eastern). Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection.

Guests:
Tim White
Professor of Integrative Biology
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California

Michael Pollan  
Author, "Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" (Penguin Press, 2006)
Contributing Writer, New York Times Magazine
Knight Professor of Journalism
University of California Berkeley
Berkeley, California

Books/Articles Discussed:

Asa Issie, Aramis and the origin of Australopithecus : Nature

"Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," by Michael Pollan. Penguin Press, 2006.

(find books discussed on previous broadcasts)

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This segment produced by Annette Heist