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“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” - Hippocrates. This was once suggested by the idea that the best supplement man can take is obtained from their diet. Which meant he was aware that eating pineapple which is rich in bromelain, is an anti-inflammatory that can help reduce swelling and even help speed up the healing process of a surgery, and also that consuming tahina which contains lysine helps heal cold sores, and even that drinking Green tea is rich in antioxidants, which help protect one from sunburns. This and many other nutritional values have disappeared in history as time and technology advances. Instead, people are misinformed by large companies that the best remedy for man, is made in a lab. This is accomplished …show more content…
Governmental influence has left the world in the dark as far as understanding the significance of a natural, holistic viewpoint of food, which has caused the public to become ill and those in power to become rich. When people are healthy no one makes money. In 1992, the government presented the United States Department of Agriculture Food Pyramid. This pyramid served as a food guide for the public suggesting what an average “Healthy” meal should look like to maintain a healthy lifestyle. However, when deciphered through a holistic viewpoint, it is portrayed as a pyramid leading one straight to sickness. It is broken down into four major sections, the bottom being the grains that should be consumed, the second level being the number of vegetables and fruits that should be eaten, third playing the role of the amount of dairy and meat servings that should be ingested, and finally the top level being the fats and oils that should be devoured. The Food Pyramid recommended eating 6-11 servings a day of grains which is a carbohydrate. The human body breaks carbohydrates into sugars, which is the …show more content…
However, this will never happen due to the profit in which they make out of the people being sick. If the people were truly aware of what the food they encounter consist of they would avoid it, which would cause them to be healthier. If the government won't help us accomplish that and the media keeps deceiving us the way they've been doing so for decades, then it leaves it to us, the people to educate ourselves, loved ones, neighbors, and especially children about a holistic understanding when dealing with a topic as simple yet broad as “food”. In doing so obesity rates will go down, heart damage will be extinguished, cancer will be no more, blood sugar levels will be sustainable, man will live longer, and man will live healthier. If this is achieved and even a fraction of the world educated themselves about a healthy mindset it will grab those in the powers' attention. Forcing them to change, forcing them to make healthy decisions. It is time to redeem our rights as individuals to take grasp of our own health and live a healthy way of living … a holistic
In recent studies, it was discovered that most of the foods that Americans consumed are foods which had gone through so many processes and thereby losing most of its nutritional values. Unhealthy nutrients are also been added to foods as additive during production to either preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance. An individual cannot simply trust what he or she is consuming at a fast food restaurant or even a cheap prepared meal at a grocery store. Processed food or western diet needs to be replaced and totally taken out of the American life and diet; this will help the Americans to live a healthier life, and spend less on medical bills.
Personal health is extremely important to everyone around the world. But it is especially important to citizens of the United States of America. Being one of the leading countries in Health technology and also in food and beverage leaves most people choosing between living a healthy lifestyle and indulging in the varieties of food we offer. Across the country, many people are living with pre-existing conditions, living in food deserts, living below the poverty line and a long list of other factors that either hinders them from eating healthy or force them to eat healthily. When trying to live a healthy lifestyle in this country not only does the promotion of prevention matter, but also the promotion of Career and job opportunities matter just as much. In the United States, Money equals Power and money also equal the opportunity to create and live a healthier lifestyle.
Michael Pollan, an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (Michael Pollan), writes in his book In Defense of Food, the dangers of nutritionism and how to escape the Western diet and subsequently most of the chronic diseases the diet imparts. In the chapter “Nutritionism Defined” Pollan defines the term nutritionism. Pollan’s main assertion being how the ideology of nutritionism defines food as the sum of its nutrients, and from this viewpoint Pollan goes on to write how nutritionism divides food into two categories, with each macronutrient divided against each other as either bad or good nutrients, in a bid for focus of our food fears and enthusiasms. Finally, Pollan concludes that with the relentless focus nutritionism places on nutrients and their interplay distinctions between foods become irrelevant and abandoned.
The 2009 movie Food Inc. describes the major role that food production plays within many lives. This movie revealed that there is a very small variety of companies that consumers purchase their food from. These few companies actually control what is out on the shelves and what we put into our bodies. These companies have changed food production into a food production business. Many of these companies experiment with ways to create large quantities of food at low production costs to result in an enormous amount of profit for themselves. Some of the production cost cuts also result in less healthy food for the population. Instead of worrying about the health of the population, the companies are worried about what will make them the most money.
When we think of our national health we wonder why Americans end up obese, heart disease filled, and diabetic. Michael Pollan’s “ Escape from the Western Diet” suggest that everything we eat has been processed some food to the point where most of could not tell what went into what we ate. Pollan thinks that if America thought more about our “Western diets” of constantly modified foods and begin to shift away from it to a more home grown of mostly plant based diet it could create a more pleasing eating culture. He calls for us to “Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants.” However, Mary Maxfield’s “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, argues differently she has the point of view that people simply eat in the wrong amounts. She recommends for others to “Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” The skewed perception of eating will cause you all kinds of health issues, while not eating at all and going skinny will mean that you will remain healthy rather than be anorexic. Then, as Maxfield points out, “We hear go out and Cram your face with Twinkies!”(Maxfield 446) when all that was said was eating as much as you need.
Nutrition and health have become more popular in today 's society. Our generation is becoming more and more indebted to the idea of being healthy and eating nutritious meals. However, in “The American Paradox,” by Michael Pollan he argues that our unhealthy population is preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthy than their actual health. He also mentions the food industry, nutrition science and how culture affects the way we eat and make food choices. While Pollan is right about all these factor that affect our eating habits, there is more to it than that. Convenience, affordability and social influence also affects our food choices making them inadequate.
There are several different approaches to changing the way people eat or think about foods. Not only do people need to be educated on nutrition and healthy lifestyles, they also need to be shown that it not something that is targeting just them. By implementing national regulations on nutrition in schools and offering programs to educate
“Eating in our time has gotten complicated” (Pollan xi). In Food Rules, author Michael Pollan makes it very clear that the American diet is unhealthy and we do not know what we are truly eating. We’ve made eating more difficult, Americans are constantly tracking, counting, and stressing about calories, carbs, and sugars. In reality a lot of us don’t really know what exactly we should be eating, we just guess and eat something that sounds like it’s good for us. I myself have done this on a daily basis. Every time I plan a meal, I think “is this too many carbs?” or “what is erythritol and is it good for me?”. In the past few months I’ve decided to become more aware of what I am putting into my body. I’ve noticed myself
Food science has led to find cures for diseases such as scurvy. Scurvy is a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, characterized by swollen bleeding gums and the opening of previously healed wounds, which particularly affected poorly nourished sailors until the end of the 18th century. This disease was very common among sailors because in the 18th century they didn’t have refrigerators, so their diets lacked perishable foods while sailing the sea. Today, if you come across this problem you can just eat a vitamin C tablet. This is just one of the many examples food science has promoted a balanced diet by the study of nutrients in our food. Food science has also done some damage to people’s diets by replacing fresh food in our supermarkets to aisles of boxed and frozen food that lack nutrients in them This problem was noticed in 1977 when a document called Dietary Goals for the United States was created after rates of coronary heart disease had soared in America since World War II. In 1977, the lipid hypothesis, it proposes that dietary or saturated fat causes heart disease by raising the concentration of cholesterol in the blood. Government has been changing the Dietary Guidelines for the United States quite often which proves not even scientists know everything about nutrition. Nutritionism has led to the creation of processed foods which has been
The government must have a say in our diets. Because the issues of obesity have already reached national scales, because the costs of obesity and related health issues have gone far beyond reasonable limits, and because fighting nutritional issues is impossible without fighting poverty and other social issues, the government should control the range and the amount of available foods. The cost of healthier foods should decrease. The access to harmful foods should be limited. In this way, the government will be able to initiate a major shift in nutritional behaviors and attitudes in society.
People want to comment and have a say about the situation. But very few people want to take action and change the way our food today is processed and made accessible to us. The major argument people have is that they do not have the money for a healthier lifestyle. But, you can’t just blame the people themselves for lack of healthier foods.
Health issues can occur when one is eating too much of one category and too little of another, this is why balance is important. Eating five peanut butter sandwiches a day may help meet the caloric and macronutrient needs, but it will fall short on certain vitamins while over-consuming others. One might argue that a balanced diet, according to ChooseMyPlate.org, includes animal products, so that must mean they are necessary for a balanced diet. In contrast, the government-regulated food pyramid is not safe from its own nutritionally flawed information. For instance, the base of the pyramid influences consumers to include 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, pasta, and rice per day. This can be incredibly misleading to those who base their diets off the pyramid alone, since the pyramid does not specify that one should choose whole grain bread over white, brown rice instead of white, or cereals that do not include high amounts of sugar. If one is basing their diets of this general information, as most Americans do, it is likely their diets are not well balanced. It also promotes the limited or sparing use of fats as the top of the pyramid but ignores the additional information needed to lead the consumer to the healthiest choice. Furthermore, it continues to group healthy forms of proteins, such as lean meats that include fish, beans and nuts, with unhealthy proteins such as processed and
One way the population of America can overcome the issue of obesity is by simply eating healthier. Further explained, people can start making healthier decisions on what they decide to eat. An example would be choosing to eat an apple over a bowl of ice cream. This is often easier said than done. Sugars and sodium counts are very high inside the foods that can only satisfy a sweet tooth. The ingestion of carbohydrates, saturated fat, and trans fat are very easy to overlook. The food pyramid is a great visual of what people should be eating daily in order to maintain a healthful way of life. Whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and protein should become the main focus at every meal. Another way to eat healthier is to follow the suggested serving size by eating smaller portions. By law it is required for food-producing companies to place a label on their products with a listing of the serving size and ...
Unhealthy food companies will not stop feeding people junk foods until people decided to start to make time for their healthy diet and buy the healthier alternatives. Junk food companies know that they need to target most of the population: The busy people in the workforce and people in poverty. Because both population will have limited amount of time and choices to buy the healthier alternative. Processed food companies have great influence in the media and advertisement ,which is why they can attract the customers to buy and maintain presence. If people choose to buy the healthier foods, the profits will decrease. Thus, it will force the junk food companies to conform with the people’s needs:
It became so clear that junk foods lead to a punch of catastrophic diseases like obesity, type two diabetes, vascular diseases and cardiac disorders. Those kinds of diseases cost more than $150 billion annually, just to diagnose, treat people who suffer from them. That disease is chronic and leads to many health-related issues, for example, obesity considers a risk factor for type two diabetes, and high blood pressure, joint disorders and many others (The Denver Post 2012). The key of preventing many chronic problems is nutrition. Low income plays an important role of limiting most people to buy and eat a healthy diet and in the other hand, it is easy for people budgets to purchase junk foods. So controlling the prices of healthy foods to be suitable for all people make good nutrition available for everyone. Adequate diets mean decreasing the epidemic of those serious diseases, and stopping the spread and break the bad sequences that may happen. Long-term exposure to junk foods that are full with chemicals like additives, preservatives have led to chronic illnesses difficult to treat. Also, the chemical added to junk foods are tasted unique and made millions of people becoming addicted to them and are available everywhere for example in restaurants, cafes, lunchrooms (The Denver Post