Before I began reading The Omnivores Dilemma, I was oblivious to the amount of choices of food that we have in our small world. The minute people walk into the grocery store, they are surrounded by an abundant variation of produce. First laying eyes on the fresh fruits and veggies that can overwhelm the human eye. Then onto the endless isles of canned food, pasta, cereals, bread, etc. Finally, ending with the large array of meats and frozen foods. Throughout the book The Omnivores Dilemma, we travel through the thoughts of Michael Pollan as he explains the paradox of the incredibly overwhelming choices people are forced to face today with choosing what foods they put on the table for dinner. We also see how the industrial world has changed …show more content…
Ending with the conclusion that corn, formerly known as Zea mays, is the root of almost all that we eat (Pollan). He even explains how chicken nuggets are piled with corn as the line of the nugget is glued together with corn starch, corn flower that makes the batter coating the nugget, and completing the nugget with the corn oil that it is fried in to give it that juicy flavor (Pollan). It’s almost mind boggling to me that when eating a chicken nugget, one might believe that they are simply consuming chicken with a little breading around it. When in fact, a large portion of it is made of corn. Pollan then continues to explain the history of corn, dating all the way back to 1492 when the New World was discovered. Furthermore, he explained the genetics of corn and how it evolved to what it is today as it is believed to have begun as a something else, a weed in fact (Pollan). I truly enjoyed this section of Pollan’s book as it challenged me to think of how the food that I eat may not be all that I think it is. It also makes me question on how healthy the food I chose to eat really is if it all relates in some way to …show more content…
The information that I read concerning how everything comes from corn, but those who grow the corn are barely making ends meet, was surprising to me. Because my grandfather is a farmer, I know how much work that farming takings and that it can be challenging to come out on top at the end of the year. However, because corn is so demanding I would have thought that corn famers would not have as much of a struggle and stress to make a profit. In fact, a large majority of corn farmer Naylor, along with other corn farmers, receive nearly half of their income from the government (Pollan). This shows that it is essential for these farmers to have additional support to come out even at the end of the years so that they can farm again the next year. Following the challenges of the daily corn farmer, Pollan moved on to the elevators that are the temporary home for the corn that Americans use. When Pollan tried to tour a mill, he was not allowed to step foot into it (Pollan). To me, this was alarming as to why the company did not want him to tour the home of the corn that is waiting to he put into the food that may one day be on my plate. Pollan’s goal of following Naylor, was to follow the trail of corn from where it is grown, where it is stored, to the animals who eat it, to the ultimate destination of the dinner
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).
Moreover, this system of mass farming leads to single crop farms, which are ecologically unsafe, and the unnatural treatment of animals (Kingsolver 14). These facts are presented to force the reader to consider their own actions when purchasing their own food because of the huge economic impact that their purchases can have. Kingsolver demonstrates this impact by stating that “every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we
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
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
Food, especially meat is such a central part of human society that it cannot be ignored. Just as big minds came together in the 60’s to make a better chicken, they can come together to solve a crisis that harms every person living in this country. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book gives an important look into what goes on behind the scenes of factory farms, and offers logical solutions. However, it will take more than this, and more than just vegetarian encouragement to make any lasting changes. It will take the votes of consumers both in the supermarket and on ballots to evoke a better system. Take a look at what is on your plate next time you sit down for a meal. Did you vote well?
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?
Eating is an instinctual habit; however, what we decide to put in our body is a choice that will affect our way of living. In “The American Paradox,” Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism at University of California, Berkeley, disapproves of the way Americans have been eating. The term “American paradox” describes the inverse correlation where we spend more of our time on nutrition, but it would only lead to our overall health deteriorating. According to Pollan, our way of eating that had been governed with culture, or our mother, was changed by the entities of food marketers and scientists, who set up nutritional guidelines that changed the way we think about food. Nutritional advice is inaccurate as it is never proven, and it is not beneficial
Michael Pollan’s purpose of writing Omnivore’s Dilemma came about when he realizes that society is unbelievably unhealthy due to the abundance of food. The two conflicting logics that Pollan introduces are the logic of nature and the logic of industry; these two logics are reflected through various ways of raising livestock animals. The logic of nature consists of raising livestock animals in a pastoral environment where animals interact with one another and avoid the use of artificial chemicals; whereas, the logic of industry settles on raising livestock animals unnaturally. Growing cattle through the use of corn has allowed meat to be produced in large quantities and in a short time as described in the chapter “Feedlot: Making Meat”
In “What’s Eating America”, Michael Pollan starts off his article by providing his audience with a background on the history of corn and its production. Additionally, he goes through both the sinister and positive sides in the history of corn, all while building a connection with his audience through his utilization of ‘we’ pronouns and by having direct conversations with his readers inside parentheticals. He continues to develop this connection throughout the text in order to slowly inch the reader towards his argument, which he presents in the final paragraph of the piece as a climax to the slow buildup of facts that previously followed the main argument. In addition, he surprises his readers by drawing grisly connections between corn and Zyklon B, amongst other images, creating a visual in the minds of his readers of corn as a malicious entity. He does this in order to to bolster his argument against the industrialization of food production, placing it in a gory, gruesome frame,
Michael Pollan discusses two categories of food: one is real food (the kind our great-grandmother would recognize), while the other is “edible food-like substances”. The category that needs defending according to Pollan is the real food. This category of food is minimally processed, fresh (will eventually rot), and includes mostly things that are taken straight from the source (the ground, tree, etc.). When one walks into a store, they should look for and pick the foods that are more “quiet”such as fresh produce than the ones that have more labels that say they are more healthy, or better for you.
In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan talks about 4 different models that we consume, purchase, and add it to our daily lives. Michael Pollan travels to different locations around the United States, where he mentions his models which are fast food, industrial organic, beyond organic, and hunting. I believe that the 3 important models that we need to feed the population are fast food, industrial organic, and beyond organic. Fast food is one of the most important models in this society because people nowadays, eat fast food everyday and it is hurting us in the long run. We need to stick to beyond organic or industrial organic food because it is good for our well being. Ever since the government and corporations took over on what we eat, we have lost our culture. In the introduction of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan states that we have lost our culture:
The book The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food, by Wayne Roberts introduces us to the concept of “food system”, which has been neglected by many people in today’s fast-changing and fast-developing global food scene. Roberts points out that rather than food system, more people tend to recognize food as a problem or an opportunity. And he believes that instead of considering food as a “problem”, we should think first and foremost about food as an “opportunity”.
...struggling to earn any income at all and sometimes do not even get the opportunity to eat. Another issue that Raj Patel did not touch on is the lack of care consumers have for the farmers. It seems that consumers care about farmers about as much as the corporations do, which, in my opinion, is not a lot. When consumers only care about low prices and large corporations only care about making a profit, the farmers are left out to dry. Many consumers believe “food should be available at a bargain price, a belief that relies on labor exploitation and environmental exhaustion at multiple points along the commodity chain.” (Wright, 95) Corporations as well as consumers generally tend to be selfish and I think Raj Patel is afraid to mention this. If only these people cared a little bit more about each other I believe the hourglass of the food system will begin to even out.