Where does one define a term as large as food? Is it the substance that we place within our mouths to sate a basic necessity or a pleasure that one can indulge in given the chance? Well, that’s the glory behind the idea of food. It’s quite frankly an abstraction given physical form. There is no proper way as to define food as it comes and goes in terms of substance throughout one’s life span. Not only is it tied to a lifespan of ever continuing alterations to the definition but it’s also engrained within each and every individual differently. The book covers a few wide topics that correlate directly with this idea and as such will be mentioned throughout the course of this work. Let’s begin with MY definition of food and how it’s evolved over the course of my life. As far back as I can remember it was the best thing in the world because it filled my belly and calmed my nerves. Much like the cases of almost everyone else who eats it, right? Well, the problem being is that I over-indulged and took in more than my fair share. When I was young, I could eat as much as a full grown man, which in itself is surprising to say the …show more content…
His main point being that we Americans have lost sight of what makes a food a real food. Many of us go to the store for convenience and will purchase whatever tastes the best for a low cost. The products found in most stores have been tampered with and altered genetically to be, “enhanced”, and more “nutritious”, when in all reality they’ve been made worse by the alterations. The value of whole foods is without a doubt a value that cannot be abandoned. It’s the only chance that future generations have to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Thus making the information that he provides invaluable to someone like me, someone who went through the grand chain of foodish products and suffered for
“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).
The book tells the history of human civilization through the development of our food production and culture. A highly relevant book to present although food is a special type of natural resource or products hereof and history is a wider subject than conflict. The gradual transition towards hierarchical social order is described. Especially the significance of irrigation is compelling.
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
He tells an experience he had when he went to a healthy food place on a trip once, he got a smoothie that was good, but had a lot of calories and cost a lot more than what was reasonable. David then brings up his second try with eating healthy foods and specific healthy places. He tried a different flavor, which he could barely handle to consume, and the price was barely lower than the first experience with a longer producing time period. Finally, he finds the perfect smoothie, low in calories as well in price, thanks to McDonalds. After telling his readers about these experiences he brings up Pollan, another author in They Say/I Say, who is very against processed foods, who expresses that organic and whole foods is the way Americans should eat to become healthier. He states “The fact is, there is simply no clear, credible evidence that any aspect of food processing or storage makes a food uniquely unhealthy” (518). This leads into his last main point, about how changing diets should not be the huge change of completely eliminating fast food and going strictly organic/whole foods, but making small, unnoticeable changes in the processed food industries, fast
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
...e has a very sensitive and personable narrative throughout the book that transcends to showing how caring of a person she is. That aspect, who the writer is, is very important to me especially when discussing such important topics that needs to be coming from someone I trust and believe in. Since food and eating habits is something that every human all has in common it is a very good book that is able to affect anyone on a personal level. For me it has drawn an even further connection to the things I have learned in this course. My family has always been health conscious because my mother has been having health problems for 20 years so the importance of health and exercise is something that I have been raised with. With textual evidence the class and this book has presented to me I am very confident in my health habits and choices today and for the rest of my life.
Food is the key for a healthy cognitive, emotion and physical developments. Mr. Nguyen makes the readers realize that food is necessary for psychological health every time when he has to face her daughter in order to force her to eat. For instance, Mr. Nguyen has no other choice except to force the spoon quickly inside her mouth, even though he is expecting her to spit it right back out (79). He is terribly down in the dumps when her daughter eats only rice and steamed tofu and sometimes, if he is successful in his begging, a fried egg (79). Food is seen as a psychological remedy when Mr. Nguyen tells her Easy-to-Love, “Do you know how much happier you would make your Ba feel if you would just eat? . . . Eat and be strong and beautiful” (80). By saying “being young and beautiful”, Mr. Nguyen is literally portraying that food brings innate happiness. Nonetheless, to be in such a good shape and thrive psychologically in the future, his daughter needs to gain her appetite to eat. The consequences of her behavior of having no appetite to eat has opened the eyes of the readers as she looks rather unhappy and frail; her cheekbones are high, eyes are sunken, hair is dry and she looks like a four-year-old even though she is already six (79). The saying “we are what we eat” is proven from his daughter’s appearance due to not taking food in the sufficient proportions that she
Michael Pollan states in his article “Escape from the Western diet”, three simple rules to follow to obtain a healthy lifestyle, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” (426). The food industry and medical community manipulate us to believe we are escaping the Western diet but to only find out that we are right back to where we started. Pollan provides some easy rules of thumb so that we aren’t caught up in the latest trends or diets but instead develop some eating boundaries that seem simple to follow on an everyday basis. Personally for me, following these rules can seem hard in some aspects but also easy in others because factors like role models when I was a kid, living situation and cooking skills effect my ability to follow the three
Eating the pizza instead of the salad seemed like a good idea at the time, but now one is stuck in this sloth like state hours later. It seems letting cravings control what and how to eat is not the best strategy to healthy living. Mary Maxfield, in her article “Food For Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Food” discusses her views on how people should eat. She believes people crave what their bodies need, therefore, people should eat what they crave. Maxfield claims that diet, health, and weight are not correlated with each other, and because of this, people view obesity as unhealthy, thus forcing them to distinguish “right, healthy” foods from the “wrong, unhealthy” choices. As a result, she concludes that science has nothing to do with
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 her book Semiotics and Communication: Signs, Codes, Cultures, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz describes the wide use of food as signs, and also as social codes. The reason foods are so useful as signs and social codes is because they are separable, easily adaptive to new environments, and it is not difficult to cook, or eat for that matter. Food is a major part of our daily lives, Not only for survival, but it plays a substantial social role in our lives. We will look deeper into the semiotics of food, how food is used as identity markers, and also the role that foods play in social change in our lives. First let us start with the semiotics of food.
Gonzalez, Julina Roel. ""The Philosophy of Food," Edited by David M. Kaplan." Ed. Michael Goldman. Teaching Philosophy 36.2 (2013): 181-82. Print.
Food is a major part of everyone’s everyday life. It’s hard to imagine life without the chocolate cake on your fingers or a carne asada taco in your mouth. Enjoying delicious desserts and fast food seem extremely magnificent to eat and spend money buying them. Although, there have been many controversies in the United States on how it’s the largest country with the most obesity regarding children, which affects their health, many people are still going throughout their day snacking. Many people in America are having full course meals with thousands of calories in one sitting not knowing the short term or long term side effects that are going to take a huge toll on their lives. Food is delicious, but it comes with a secret behind the savoriness/sweetness.
Through various observations and assumptions, there have been conversations on whether or not overconsumption of food is an addiction. However, many have come to the conclusion that food is an addiction if it is overconsume excessively than it is necessary for an individual’s diet. Nevertheless, food addiction can create health issues that can affect an individual’s body. Even though, many individual may have such knowledge of overconsumption of food; however, many may choose to ignore the consequences that comes with food addiction. Becoming a food addict is harmful and dangerous to an individual’s health.
Food and eating practices are so diverse across different cultures, that often some are perceived as being maladaptive or pathological. Many animals, including humans, have been known to practice geophagy. It is more common for homo sapiens to consume dirt or dirt particles unintentionally, rather than consciously eating it. This is because according to western biomedicine, it is not socially acceptable, and has therefore the act of intentionally eating dirt is pathological. When comparing the average nutritional value of a North American diet, to the nutrients in dirt, process foods do not compare to the nutritional value found in dirt (Callahan, 2003). Many parts of the world use dirt as flavoring in their food, for nutrition, and use it