Have you ever stopped and asked yourself: am I really eating healthy? Recently, I’ve come to the realization of what I’m eating on a daily basis isn’t entirely healthy for me. Michael Pollan, who is author of the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has opened my mind. While reading the first couple of chapters of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I’ve realized that I don’t know much about the food that I am eating. For example, I didn’t know that farmers not only feed their animals, corn but they also feed them antibiotics (Walsh 34). In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan makes a strange statement, “You are what what you eat eats, too” (Pollan 84). Pollan continuously emphasizes this remark through various examples, and he’s right because strangely enough the food …show more content…
Pollan’s words, “You are what what you eat eats, too”, got me thinking about how not only am I eating my food, but I am also eating what my food ate (Pollan 84). For example, when I eat a hamburger, I’m not only eating cow meat and bread, but I’m also eating what the cow ate, which is now mostly corn and antibiotics. When I first learned that cows are mainly eating corn and antibiotics, I was appalled. Though many may say that animals are being fed antibiotics to combat all sorts of disease, an article written by Sabrina Tavernise, who wrote for the New York Times, even states, “Farmers learned that antibiotics helped animals grow rapidly, and they began to add the drugs to feed and water, with no prescriptions or sign of sickness in the animals” (Tavernise 2014). The main reason for cows being fed all of these antibiotics isn’t simply because the animals are sick. Instead the animals are being fed these drugs because these drugs apparently help shorten the amount of time for animals to be sent to slaughter …show more content…
This then brings up the issue of how our food is much worse than we had originally believed. Bryan Walsh, writer for TIME, wrote the article, The Real Cost of Cheap Food, “To stay and grow in such conditions, farm animals need pharmaceutical help, which can further damaging consequences for humans” (Walsh 34). From the chickens to the cows, animals are kept in “prison-like conditions” that causes them to become very sick (Walsh 34). To prevent animals from getting extremely sick to the point where they die before it’s their time, farmers feed them antibiotics. Not only are the animals eating corn and antibiotics, but so are we. We are eating so much more than we ever asked for. I’ve never asked to have antibiotics in my hamburger, and I’m sure many others haven’t either, however, that is the price we ought to pay for our cheap food. Not only must we ask ourselves if we are healthy, but now we must ask ourselves if what we are eating is also eating
Niman, Nicolette H. "The Carnivore's Dilemma." Food. Ed. Brooke Rollins and Lee Bauknight. 1st ed. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead, 2010. 169-73. Print.
“Food as thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating,” is an article written by Mary Maxfield in response or reaction to Michael Pollan’s “Escape from the Western Diet”. Michael Pollan tried to enlighten the readers about what they should eat or not in order to stay healthy by offering and proposing a simple theory: “the elimination of processed foods” (443).
There are many different beliefs about the proper way to eat healthy. People are often mislead and live unhealthy lifestyles as a result. Both Mary Maxfield and Michael Pollan explain their own beliefs on what a healthy diet is and how to live a healthy lifestyle. In the essay, “Escape from the Western diet” Michael Pollan writes about the flaws of the western diet and how we can correct these problems to become healthier. In the essay, “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, Mary Maxfield criticizes Michael Pollan’s essay about eating healthy, and explains her own theory on how to be healthy. She believes that Pollan is contradicting himself and that what he is stating is false. Mary Maxfield ponders the
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.
During this chapter of The Omnivore’s Dilemma Pollan talks about fast food. This means that he is speaking to people who regularly eat fast food and those who are wondering what is in their food when they order out. As a part of this he asks biologist Todd Dawson to run fast food items through a spectrometer to see how much corn is in the food. His analyses concluded that “soda (100 percent corn), milk shake (78 percent), salad dressing (65 percent), chicken nuggets (56 percent), cheeseburger (52 percent), and French fries (23 percent)” (p. 117). This is part of Pollan educating his audience of what is in their food when they go through the drive through. Speaking of his audience, his main demographic is to the people that are truly wonder
In his essay “The American Paradox”, Michael Pollan illustrates his conclusion that Americans who focus on nutrition have a higher probability of decreasing their well-being. Pollan defines the American paradox as “a notably unhealthy population preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthily.” For most of our human history, our parents and culture have influenced our diet. However, today the idea of what to eat has been based on the opinions of scientists, food markets, and nutritionists. I agree with Pollan’s argument that being preoccupied with what we eat makes us unhealthy, however, we need a balance and a sense of responsibility in what we eat.
He claims that a better diet requires spending more time and resources on food, just like the people of the past did. Pollan attributes their surpassing health to this practice, but in his article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”, David Freedman paints a different story. Freedman describes how examinations of ancient non-Western remains revealed “hardened arteries, suggesting that pre-industrial diets…may not have been the epitome of healthy eating” (514). This discovery seriously undermines Pollan’s assumption that we should follow the lead of our ancestors because even though they spent a greater amount of resources on food and ate absolutely no processed foods, they still suffered from some of the same diseases which Pollan claims his eating habits will curb. As an opponent of processed foods, or “foodlike products” (Pollan 426), Pollan advocates eating whole foods. As many people have a similar opinion, he is not alone in this, but he is misinformed. Freedman reveals that after examining the nutrition labels on various unprocessed, whole foods, he found that many contained more fat, sugar, and sodium than processed foods (512). If unprocessed foods underwent the same scrutiny as processed foods, perhaps this common misconception could be prevented. The basic premise of Pollan’s essay is that a better diet will lead to better health. While we could all benefit from a better diet, “findings linking food type and health are considered highly unreliable (Freedman 518). Freedman discusses the multitude of nondietary factors such as air quality and exercise that render such studies untrustworthy. Pollan might be a well-respected author of nutrition books, but this does not mean that his theories are free of
...the extra use of arsenal drugs due since these cattle are unable to process corn. Raising cattle evidently conflicts with the logic of nature because these cattle are equipped with a very highly complex system that has evolved to transform the nutrients of the plants from photosynthesis to transferring these nutrients to the meat that Americans eat. Growing livestock animals on grass act in mutual relationship because each organism has its own natural way of contributing to the food chain, essentially bettering the health of their own cyclic complex system but also the health of the consumers. Nonetheless, the organic method is far too time and money consuming that farmers are now using a cheap commodity that is used in almost everything, Americans are in fact “walking corn.”
American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous could apply to many different things though. Our food is dangerous to the consumer, the workers and farmers, the animals and the environment. Walsh gives examples of each of these in his article that leads back to the main point of how dangerous the food we are consuming every day really is. He goes into detail on each of them but focuses his information on the consumer.
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.
Fast food consumption is taking America by a storm and it is for the sake of our lives. Fast food relies heavily on industrialized corn because of how cheap and easy to grow it is. With that being said, animals are being fed with corn rather than being fed with grass. In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Rich Blair who runs a “cow-calf” operation s...
“Misuse of antibiotics could result in selection for resistant bacteria”. This gentle warning mentioned by the inventor of antibiotics, Sir Alexander Fleming, seems to have lost its meaning over the course of years. Antimicrobial resistance is a growing public health concern; antibiotics used in factory farmed animals raised for human consumption contributes to this problem. Scientific evidence confirms that by the consumption of meat that contains antibiotic-resistant microbes, some antibiotic resistant bacteria are transferred from animals to humans ("GAO"). Factory farming has its benefits, but issues arise due to the overuse of antibiotics in factory-farmed animals, and this essay aims to propose a solution by analyzing Denmark’s successful antibiotic banning policies.
Pollan believes that Americans rely on nutrition science, the study of individual nutrients like carbohydrates, fats, and antioxidants, to fix the Western diet because it is the best source that exists. However, scientists have developed conflicting theories that confuse people to conclude as to how the Western diet causes disease, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Pollan disagrees with any type theory and instead blames the food and health industries who take advantage of new theories but do not to fix the problem of the Western diet. In turn, not only does he suggest people spending more time and money on better food choices, but he also proposes many tips to eat better, as well as a rule that will allow Americans climb out of the Western diet: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants (Pollan,
The only problem with Michael Pollan’s outlook on nutritionism is the fact that he is completely against scientific research on the subject because history in this matter has not been reliable. With any good, there is also bad that follows. This relates to scientific research on nutrients which have provided many useful things to society, yet brought some evils such as processed foods which have plagued the American Diet for many years. Amongst all the countries in the world the United States of America has a population in which two-thirds of their people are obese. When it comes to processed foods, people should take this chemically engineered food with a grain of salt, take a more traditional approach and use current knowledge to promote a healthy
In the book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan explores the relationship between nutrition and the Western diet, claiming that the answer to healthy eating is simply to “eat food”.