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The Omnivore's Dilemma Analysis

analytical Essay
1384 words
1384 words
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Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat, …show more content…

In this essay, the author

  • Analyzes christopher d. cook's "diet for a dead planet: big business and the coming food crisis," which explores the unappealing, yet unseen, underbelly of modern food production.
  • Analyzes how cook concludes his book on a positive not by reviewing some of the burgeoning movements seeking better ways of producing and distributing food.
  • Explains the 4 most common diet mistakes, which are a lot of hot air and there is no scientific proof.
  • Recommends eating chocolate or one or two pieces of chocolate once a week to feel good. wholegrain products provide almost as many calories as those from white flour and the fat content of 8.5 grams is more than twice as high.
  • Explains that vegetarians have a lower risk of getting cancer than meat-eaters, and that the study concentrates on full-vegetarians.
  • Compares the results of the european prospective investigation into cancer and nutrition, which shows that cancer is a complex disease.

They've studied about 53.000 participants. Among these participants were about 17.000 vegetarians. They've studied the data of all these participants and something interesting became clear: People that were not consuming meat during their lifetime had fewer cancers on average than people who were consuming meat. There was also a remarkable result. Colon cancer is a type of cancer associated with consuming of red meat. However it became clear from the study that vegetarians had more colon cancer than other participants. Although the results are interesting, it's not completely new. It is already well known that people can reduce the cancer if they regularly eat fruit and vegetables. If you stick to this then it is said that you can decrease the risk of getting cancer. The new element of this study however is the fact that it concentrates on full vegetarians. The study doesn't only focus on meat eaters that eat fruit and vegetables occasionally. This gives a better view on the effect of meat by itself on the development of cancer. The researchers studied the participants from the age of 20 to 89. These people were organized into 4 groups. There were of course the meat-eaters. Also people who ate fish got their own group. The remaining groups were the vegetarians and the extreme vegetarians. Extreme vegetarians are also called vegans. What the difference is between vegetarians and vegans is that vegans are very strict. Vegetarians just avoid meat and such things. Vegans avoid every ingredient that is related to animals. Vegans don't even want to wear clothes that were made of animals. So vegans go much further than a 'normal vegetarian' The group of people who ate fish and the vegetarians showed fewer cancers than meat eaters. So it's not only vegetarians that show better results. The people who eat fish also

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