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What You Eat Is Your Business Essay

656 Words3 Pages

Americans today are well-known for their eating habits. With all the options the food industry gives us it makes it hard to go to the grocery store and resist picking up that bag of barbeque-flavored chips or blueberry flavored candy. Due to these processed foods obesity is a growing epidemic in our country and who is to blame for it? In an article entitled “What You Eat is Your Business” by Radley Balko, Balko argues for less government intervention. Balko believes is it our responsibility to take care of ourselves and make it a priority. I do agree that the government should stay out of personal subjects and not everyone should be punished for other people 's actions. I believe that as Americans we should put more effort into our own diet, and make our health a …show more content…

They both want what is good for consumers and they want to inform the public. However, they both fail to include important parts to their argument. Balko brings up several ideas that some would think to be ridiculous and his explanation for these ideas is too-flawed to be taken seriously. Pollan’s “mostly plant” diet sounds like a good idea but chain-grocery store vegetables and fruits have gone through just as much de-naturalization as the beef industry that he points out. Overall, I would say that Pollan’s solution to the western diet would be much more effective than Balko’s. Pollan takes much more realistic approach whereas Balko’s ideas seem to be ineffective and hard to accomplish. Pollan suggests we eat more plants and whole foods which we can do if we grow our own garden or travel to all natural farms to get our fruits and vegetables. He also suggests we cook instead of getting fast food which I agree with. The quality would be much better if we made it ourselves instead of taking shortcuts. We all need to take action towards our health and fast food companies in order to see a

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