Michael Pollans Arguments About The Western Diet

In Michael Pollan’s essay “Escape from the Western Diet,” he directly to Americans about the western diet and why he believes they need to escape from it. The reason Americans should escape the western diet is to avoid the harmful effects associated with it such as “western diseases” (Pollan, 420). To support his view on the issue, Pollan describes factors of the western diet that dictate what Americans believe they should eat. These factors include scientists with their theories of nutritionist, the food industry supporting the theories by making products, and the health industry making medication to support those same theories. Overall, Pollan feels that in order to escape this diet, people need to get the idea of it out of their heads. In turn, he provides his own rules for escaping the western diet as well as the idea of nutritionist set forth by scientists.

As diets and health become more and more of a public concern in America. Two authors weigh in on their opinions on how the American public should handle the problem of obesity as well as their solutions to the overwhelming issue. In one article, “Against Meat,” published on the New York Times website in 2009, points out that the solution to obesity should be vegetarianism. Johnathan Foer who is a vegetarian, claims that his diet and way of living is his the way of improving health in the American public. Foer’s article provides a sense of humor as well as personal stories to attempt to persuade his audience for the ethical treatment of animals along with his personal solution for his own health and the health of his family. On a differing take on the solution, “Escape from the Western Diet” by Michael Pollan provides the complete change of our diet and way of life based around cooking and eating meals. however creates a more powerful and logical argument against the “Western Diet” in his article, He uses a combination of his credibility from his publications on health and foods, evidence against the practices of the medical community, along with his solution to the issue of obesity to create an article that draws in audience’s emotions and rationale.

Author of the essay “Eat Food: Food Defined” Michael Pollan, states that everything that pretends to be a food really isn’t a food. Michael persuaded me into agreeing with his argument by talking about how people shouldn’t eat anything their great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food and avoid food products containing ingredients that are unpronounceable, lists more than five, and contains high fructose corn syrup. He opened my eyes to information I wouldn’t have thought about or researched myself. He got into depth about a type of Sara Lee bread that contains way more ingredients than needed to make the bread, including high fructose corn syrup that isn’t good for you. Marketers are doing this to sell more of their product by making it taste

In “How Junk Food Can End Obesity,” by David H. Freedman, he claims that processed foods can help fix the obesity crisis in a more realistic manner, rather than whole-some foods. The popular opinion emphasizes whole-some foods because they aren’t informed about the similitude between processed and unprocessed foods. The essence of the essay is that people believe processed foods are bad and unhealthy for us, therefore whole-some foods are highly recommended for the health of an individual. Freedman mentions many prominent authors who wrote books on food processing, but the most influential voice in the food culture Freedman makes a point of is, American journalist, Michael Pollan. The media and Michael Pollan indicate that everything should be replaced with real, fresh, and unprocessed foods, instead of engineering in as much sugar, salt, and fat as possible into industrialized foods. With that being said, most restaurants and grocery stores are declining industrialized foods, giving the name, “food-like substances.” Freedman feels that it is not a realistic way to stop this obesity epidemic by trying to persuade people into completely changing their habits of eating. Instead, Freedman believes that incorporating better ingredients in processed foods will

Michael Pollan summarizes what we should eat in his book IN DEFENSE OF FOOD. There are many “edible food like substances in the supermarket” (1) indicates his disagreement how people consume processed food from supermarket. So, he advises people to eat whole fresh food and avoid the treated food. “Lots of processed foods and meats…makes people sick and fat” (10). Pollan concerns regarding public health due to processed food and then encourages people to eat lots of fruits and vegetables to be healthy. “We should eat less of any particular actual food” (51). People consider that they can lose their weight just by reducing their total consumption of fat and completely undermining the portion of other food they consume. To remain hale and hearty,

Junk food is responsible for the growing rate of obesity. This is outlined by David freedman in his article of “How junk food can end obesity.” David Freedman has credited the “health-food” motion, and followers of it along with Michel Pollan. Freedman claims that if the America desires to stop the obesity epidemic, or at least reduce its effects, they must shift to the fast meals and processed meals enterprise for assist, now not the “health-food” movement.

Pollan believes one of the biggest challenges in escaping the Western diet is changing how we eat and think. When trying to eat healthier we tend to focus on how many calories and nutrients are in the foods we eat, when we should be focusing on the degree of processing (Pollan 423). He thinks we should eat more whole foods and avoid those that are overly processed. This would be simple, except for the fact that the industry has invaded many whole foods (Pollan 424). One example of this Pollan gives is the beef we eat comes from cattle raised on a Western diet. Because

In the essay, “Escape from Western Diet”, the author, Michael Pollan discusses that western diet is unhealthy to people, because western diet is responsible for many kinds of diseases. Michael pollan is against with the new theories and he think that the reason behind this diseases is because of the food industry. Nowadays food industry is making more processed food than the healthy food. I agree with Michael Pollan that food industries is using different type of theories to make a new products which is very harmful and unhealthy to those people who regularly eats diet food. I also agree with Michael Pollan’s three rules “Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants”. I think that people should eat less of the western food and instead of spending

Michael Pollan’s “Escape from the Western Diet,” is used to directly talk to Americans about the western diet and how he believes they should escape from it. His main point is that we should escape to avoid the harmful effects associated with it such as “western diseases” (Pollan, 420). Then he goes on to describes what Americans believe they should be eating and how they don’t even seem to care. They are nutritionist with their theories, the food industry supporting the theories by new healthy products, and the health industry reaping the reward by making medication to support those same theories. For Americans to escape this diet, they must get the idea of it out of their heads. Pollan then provides his own set of rules for escaping the

In this book, Michael Polland highlights the main issues in today’s “Western Diet,” breaking down the factors contributing to our unhealthy food consumption. Nutritionism is an idea that we are constantly surrounded by, but how much of it do you really understand? How much of it is truth, and how much is simply manipulation?

There are more ways to shun obesity. Michael Pollan, who wrote “Escape from the western diet”, claims that the fast food industry are one of the main reasons why the people struggle with their health. He believes that the processed food we consume gives us harmful deceases. Pollan urges us to listen to his words to avoid the “Western diet”, he preaches that this is main cause of obesity, yet he does not give concrete information. I disagree with Pollan’s view that the food industry is the main cause of our health problems because although Pollan gives us great arguments he does not dive in into greater detail.

Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma tells how omnivores have a variety of foods to choose from, whether they are nutritious or not. The lack of steadying culture of food leaves us especially vulnerable to the blandishments of the food industry to exacerbate our anxieties about what to eat, the better to then assuage them with new products (5). That is true indeed. There is an abundance of food in America, so how are the options limited? Plain and simple, Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide them (5). The food revolution has also altered. Back in the day, people ate by cooking on fire, hunting with tools, farming, and food preservation. Now, Americans have people cooking for them so they are not as “hands

He explained his critical attitude on the nutritionism, described the place of the Western Diet in the modern world and difficulties linked to its avoidance. The author also proposed several simple ways to improve food behavior. These rules can be treated as a logical fallacy of the article. At the beginning Pollan stated people should escape not only from the Western Diet, but from the nutritionism too. But his first rule “Eat food” that includes the separation of a “real food from the cascade of foodlike products that are surround and confound us” (Pollan 4) make the last task difficult. The author himself mentioned the modern industry made its impact on the “whole food”. So people need to check product’s chemical content to be sure they eat the real food; it makes it impossible to separate diet from science, like Pollan wanted. I also do not think the author treated the nutritionism fairly. While he was right in his critique of debates between different “cults” of direct nutrients, the nutritionism has the true basis. Food’s value really is in its nutrients, and the problem of the Western Diet is that meals lack of some compounds and have an excess of other. It would be difficult to value the food itself more, if people would not know its

Michael Pollan, in "Eat Food: Food Defined" argues that large amounts of what we consume is not food and his goal in this article is to assist eaters. He mentions that ordinary food is an important for consumers. In this article, the author provides some recommendations that eaters should follow to substitute fake foods. Firstly, Pollan gives some pieces of advice explaining how we, as consumers, can avoid food that our grandmother do not identifies by giving an example of unknown ingredients of yogurt. In this example, he tries to show how to read the ingredients label whether it consists of familiar elements or not, and we should be aware of this kind of foods that travel to our body. After that, the author gives warns to consumer of eating

hamburger and fries are everyones best friend. salads, veggies, and fruits will not satisfy a persons craving, or hunger. no one seems to realize the effects and harmfull diseases that get pilled up in our body from fast food products. causing kids and even adults to have diabetes, and obesity. busy and fully scheduled parents take advantage of the convienent hours and proces fat food restraints have to offer. completely unaware, meat in our burgers and everything already pre coked is pretty much fake. and labeled wrong with incorrect false nutrition labels. the consequences we face in our daily diet are based on nutrition labels. which are most of the times based of false theories. causing many people to believe the false theories provided