Escape From The Western Diet Essay

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 …show more content…

They both are right and wrong at once, when reading the articles I could not help but to think of the Morgan Spurlock’s documentary “Super Size Me,” for those that don’t know in this film Morgan goes on a one month McDonald 's only diet, during which he gets the oversized portions and eats every hyper processed food on the menu. Turning the average relatively fit adult American into a sluggish shadow of what he was before the one month. Morgan did both things that Pollen and Maxfield wanted to avoid. Pollen a processed diet and Maxfield a feast beyond your body’s …show more content…

Imagine what would be healthier a homemade dish with fresh ingredient purchases the day before, prepared by someone at home or the more typical take out meal households serve on a seemingly regular base. I would venture to guess that most would choose the homemade meal as healthier if the person making knows what they are doing. When making food at home the raw ingredients used are much healthier, in all likelihood it has not been precooked, and the ingredients smells a little earthy. When cooked at home the chef knows ever spice, vegetable and slices of meat that goes into the meal, so from start to finish almost everything is known about the meal. However, the take out meal when we buy, order and eat, we are not one hundred percent sure what goes into the meal. Sure, we can see some onions here, maybe some carrot slices, and the cube of meat. Hang on, we are not sure about the spices did the restaurant add some extra fat? Maybe some Monosodium glutamate, MSG was thrown into the mix or some other assortment of special spice just to make it taste that much better. At this point we 're no longer sure what composed the meal, which can lead to use over consuming on daily nutrients, leading directly into doing just that one waist size