The Omnivore's Dilemma Summary

America has the highest number of obese people in the world, and ironically have come up with popular diets. A common, well known diet, leans towards living a plant-based diet; but on the other hand there are diets that are completely opposite and focus on being meat based. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, wrote that Americans have a very hard time deciding what to eat because of their fear of trying new things. The lack of a national cuisine makes Americans second guess themselves and have an overall very hard time with the omnivore’s dilemma. Another argument, Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, written by Jennifer McLagan, agreed with Pollan and his argument with meat and fats being good for one’s health

She related this to her childhood and explained that her family “ate fat with pleasure,” meaning they didn’t think twice about a meal because of what was being discussed outside of their home. She later explained that no one in her family actually had a weight problem and if they did it was because their lifestyle, i.e. exercise habits, portion control, etc., had changed. Just as Pollan notes, French people make time in their day to exercise which helps control their weight and overall health; also they do not eat processed foods, eat between meals, or eat too much during meals. In regards to health problems in America, McLagan made a shocking discovery, “science failed to prove conclusively that there was any direct connection between eating saturated fats and developing heart disease”(4). McLagan here makes it clear that there is no direct link between animal fat and heart disease. Further into the article McLagan explained that the improvement of medical care over time had more of an impact on reducing heart disease than dieting

Americans generally look to take the easy way out of things whether it is medically related, work related, etc. For example, one of the characters in the film had a lot of problems with his health, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. so doctors suggested he stopped taking pills and start eating a whole food plant-based diet. Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn are the doctors that came up with this theory. They argue that by removing meat and dairy from one’s diet, it can solve all problems, or at least the medically related ones. A common theme that we have been seeing is the agreement that processed foods are very bad for our health. This film takes a different approach then the two previous arguments, because it focuses on not eating meat. The arguments made before focus on portion control and leaving processed foods out of our diets, but removing meat and dairy from our diets is what Forks Over Knives focus