When it comes to your health, who do you listen to, your body or the experts? Do you consider food that have harmful effects on our body “bad food” or “junk food”? Well graduate student from Bowling Green State University, Mary Maxfield recommends that we need to listen more to our body then we do the experts. She also says that we should label food good versus bad instead of the word “junk food”. While journalist Michael Pollan argues that our body is not always correct and that’s why we should leave it to the professionals. He also argues that in order to live healthier lives we need to cut out junk food. Both Pollan and Maxfield have very different views on the way we should take care of our health. In the essay, Escape from the Western …show more content…
Junk food is filled with tons of carbohydrates and Omega-3-fatty acids that then causes chronic diseases. He then goes on to say, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plant.” (Pollan,426). In the essay, Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating, Maxfield writes that we need to consider food either “good” or “bad” instead of junk food. Also that we need to listen more to our body because body knows what’s best for our health. Maxfields first argument is that we need to trust our body when it comes to taking care of our health. When we eat our body will tells us when we’re hungry or when we’re full. It also tells us weather something we ate was really bad for us or really good. Our body has many ways to inform us what is good and what is bad for our bodies. On the other hand, Pollan would say that our body can 't tell us everything that is going to happen. Thats is why we leave it to the experts to tell us. They can do lots of testing to show what is really going on in our body. And with those test come with results that can better our knowledge of our body. On this topic I agree with both to a certain extent. I do trust my body in telling me what is good versus what
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.
According to Pollan, the dietary advice made by nutritionists deprives us from the pleasure of eating, expressing our identity, and connecting to our family
Michael Pollan and David Freedman are two reputable authors who have written about different types of food and why they are healthy or why they are damaging to our health. Michael Pollan wrote “Escape from the Western Diet” and David Freedman wrote “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”. Imagine Pollan’s idea of a perfect world. Everything is organic. McDonald’s is serving spinach smoothies and Walmart is supplying consumers with raw milk. The vast majority of food in this world consists of plants grown locally, because almost everyone is a farmer in order to keep up with supply and demand. How much does all this cost? What happened to all the food that is loved just because it tastes good?
Published In his article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”, David Freedman begins by talking about how misinformed people are about wholefood restaurants and stores. These stores are run by so-called health food experts. Freedman makes himself distinguishable himself from the position of Michael Pollan and his adherents. His adherents are known as Pollanites. They are the people who believe that processed food is the reason we have health and obesity issues.
The Western Diet is basically processed food, which is foods that are full with hormones, refined grains, sweet food, and food that is high in saturated fats. This food method that America is following is the reason for the increased rate of obesity in the country and many chronic diseases, due to why many Americans are suffering from. Pollan wants Americans to take control and set goals for themselves and their health. As he states, “A hallmark of the Western diet is food that is fast, cheap, and easy.”(424) This is the reason why people tend to buy it this food. Pollan is right about how the Western diet is affecting the people’s health negatively because of recent studies have shown that most of the food that people consume are processed foods, which gone through a process letting most of its nutritional values. Also, the food is full of unhealthy nutrients that are added to it during the process. An individual cannot have assurance of what he/she is consuming from a fast food place or a cheap prepared meal from grocery store. Western diet needs to be taken away from American’s life. He states “Not Too Much”(pp.426) will be the focus from the foods themselves to the question of how to eat, the manners, mores, and the habits that go with creating a healthy diet, and pleasing culture of eating. This way it will allow Americans to live their life healthier and
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.
In the article by Wendell Berry titled “The Pleasures of Eating” he tries to persuade the readers of the necessity and importance of critical thinking and approach to choosing meals and owning responsibility for the quality of the food cooked. He states that people who are not conscious enough while consuming products, and those who do not connect the concept of food with agricultural products, as people whose denial or avoidance prevents them from eating healthy and natural food. Berry tries to make people think about what they eat, and how this food they eat is produced. He points to the aspects, some which may not be recognized by people, of ethical, financial and
According to Pollan the question “what to eat” is complicated but “to guide us we have culture” (The American Paradox). Culture influences food likes and dislikes. Culture creates food preferences which make patterns of food choices, making everyone 's selection different. Whoever the influence of our culture has been changing throughout the years, with the food industry taking over the markets. Now we do not necessarily eat what our grandparents or even what our parents used to eat, instead we have this new massive produced packaged products. This is the reason why Americans food habits are changing, now more than ver we see people consuming products not because hey are part of their culture but because is what the media tells you to consume. The 21st century has a new obsession which is body image, now more than ever people is caring about the way they look due to all the advertisement about having a perfect body. Now America is obsess with making every product beneficial to your body but how many chemicals do they use to make that diet yogurt so it can be fat free, sugar free and still have some natural ingredients in it. This is the exact point pollan is trying to make in his article we are obsess with being healthy that we forget to check what are we really eating and where ir comes
Since Michael Pollan received his Master’s Degree in English (“Michael Pollan: Biography”), he has written top shelf extraordinary books, some of which are New York Times Best Sellers: Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A History of Four Meals, and many others (“About Michael Pollan”). Michael’s writing has won awards such as the World Conservation Union Global Award and the Genesis Award from the American Humane Association for his writing on animal agriculture (“About Michael Pollan”); therefor is credible enough to be writing about food and animals because he has been awarded in this subject. Moreover, Pollan is named one of Time’...
Gonzalez, Julina Roel. ""The Philosophy of Food," Edited by David M. Kaplan." Ed. Michael Goldman. Teaching Philosophy 36.2 (2013): 181-82. Print.
The essay Junking Junk Food written by Judith Warner, brings to the audiences attention the wicked problem of how there has been a decline in Americans health. Warner’s information speaks loudly about being forced into a healthy lifestyle by the Obama administration. The Obama administration tried to enforce a healthy lifestyle among the citizens by focusing on the youth and taking away sugar options for them. Warner, puts her voice into this by mentioning the system during the world war when the soldiers had to eat overseas so there was less food consumption in America, which helped stop over consumption of food. Back then food was also much healthier thought, with less hormones, chemicals and less options of fast food. Again making it easier
We make personal choices about what and where to eat. The government is not going to eliminate the unhealthy food because we think it is the cause of obesity. Ultimately, we must decide to either stay away from unhealthy food or eat them in moderation. Despite all the efforts of education, media and guidance it doesn’t prevent us from grabbing that cheeseburger with fries on the way to work. In his essay “What You Eat Is Your Business,” Radley Balko argues that society should take full responsi...
Many people in America, from toddlers to the elderly, have shown numerous signs of bad health. People have the desire to keep on eating due to more, new things being merchandised as “new and improved items” from the producers. For example, nowadays, people are eating pure junk that they find satisfying on the grocery food shelf. As, stated by Michael Pollan, in his article, “Eat Food: Food Defined” he affirmed that “real food is the type of things that our
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”.
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