Government + Food Industry = ?

Regulating what the government should control and what they should not was one of the main arguments our founding fathers had to deal with when creating our nation, and to this day this regulation is one of the biggest issues in society. Yet, I doubt our founding fathers thought about the idea that the food industry could one day somewhat control our government, which is what we are now facing. Marion Nestles’ arguments in the book Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health deal with how large food companies and government intertwine with one another. She uses many logical appeals and credible sources to make the audience understand the problem with this intermingling. In The Politics of Food author Geoffrey Cannon further discusses this fault but with more emotional appeals, by use of personal narratives. Together these writers make it dramatically understandable why this combination of the food industry and politics is such a lethal ordeal. However, in The Food Lobbyists, Harold D. Guither makes a different viewpoint on the food industry/government argument. In his text Guither speaks from a median unbiased standpoint, which allows the reader to determine his or her own opinions of the food industries impact on government, and vise versa.

In her book Marion Nestle examines many aspects of the food industry that call for regulation and closer examination. Nestle was a member of the Food Advisory Committee to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the 1990’s and therefore helps deem herself as a credible source of information to the audience. (Nestle 2003). Yet, with her wealth of knowledge and experience she narrates from a very candid and logical perspective, but her delivery of this knowled...

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...to interpret the material up to the reader, but the use of these appeals help persuade the audience member to think a certain way. These analytical tools prove just how effective and in depth writers go into their material to make their work come across more powerful and influential, and each of these authors did just that.

Works Cited

Cannon, Geoffrey. The Politics of Food. London: Century, 1987.

"Geoffrey Cannon." Random House Australia. http://www.randomhouse.com.au/Author/Cannon,%20Geoffrey (accessed February 4, 2011).

Guither, Harold Daniel. The Food Lobbyists. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1980

Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Nestle, Marion. Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.