Diet Vs Drugs Vs Diet

Since time immemorial, meat has always been the human’s primary source of food even way before plants were discovered to be edible. Humans won’t

In Michael Pollan’s essay “Escape from the Western Diet,” he informs Americans about the western diet and 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, 434). 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 nutritionism, 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

The author claims how the scientific theories also benefit the medical community as well. The author quotes, “Still, medicalizing the whole problem of the Western diet instead of working to overturn it” (Pollan422). This quote argues how people talk about the Western diet as being a problem, but do not try to change it in any way. I agree with Pollan’s point, that the medical community uses this as an opportunity to promote their new medicine. People would rather spend more money in the medical industry, than trying to quit their habits of eating processes to foods. Americans would rather pay more for drugs to help prevent diseases than eating more natural food and preventing the problem from occurring in the first place. Medical communities tend to focus more of their attention on introducing their new treatment, rather than advertising on prevention of these diseases. Americans are persuaded and blinded by these advertisements, that they do not realize that this can all be prevented by a change in diet. Although I agree with Pollan’s point about the medical community, I cannot accept his overriding assumption that it is the exact same as the food industries. The medical community makes more money based on how effective the food industries’ new product is. The unhealthier the food is, the more people will have to pay to get drugs to prevent diseases.

Michael Pollan says in his argument that the western diet is chiefly to blame for a majority of health deceases, he says “the scientist who blame our health problems on defiances of these micronutrients are not the same scientist who see sugar-soaked diet leading to metabolic syndrome and from there to diabetes, heart deceases, and cancer” (421) Due to all this negative impact to our health Pollan says that the food industry needs new theories to better redesign processed food and the medical community to make new drugs to beget deceases.

Animal meat has all necessary nutrients, especially protein that is necessary for the human body to grow and function properly. Besides, it plays a vital role in brain development. As suggested by Smil (2013), “Killing animals and eating meat have been significant components of human evolution…have inevitably contributed to the evolution of human intelligence…” (p.1). According to the findings of the University of Colorado (2012), anthropologists have excavated a toddler’s “skull fragment” in Tanzania that is the abnormally tiny size of skull, due to a protein deficiency in the diet and led to youth mortality; this condition was very rare in 1.8 million years ago. This indicates that animal meat is a paramount in the human body, without the essential amino acids that exists in animal meats; human evolution cannot happen (p.1).

An increasing number of people are using products to enhance their diets. A recent estimate indicates, “Americans are spending some $6 billion annually on nutritional supplements, and the market is growing by 20% every year” (Zahn, 1997). Of these supplements, the increase in herbal remedy use is most dramatic. Zahn holds that the increase can be attributed to the widely held belief that herbal substances are healthy and harmless because of their natural origins (1997). Unfortunately, research on these supplements, herbal or otherwise, has not transmitted to the public as quickly as the diet enhancers themselves. The phenomenon leaves many consumers misguided by skewed advertising and

Replacing all the meat in the human diet with vegetables and fruit is difficult. At the expense of refraining from eating meat, we are expected to partake in excessive

Pollan believes that Western diet is the primary cause of many of the different ailments that are impacting contemporary society. A few of the most notable include: heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. This is because there is no vested interest in supporting primary care and preventive medicine. As the health care industry wants to create drugs that can treat these conditions. Yet, they do not deal with the root causes of the problem. Instead, they allow the individual to engage in a pattern of destructive lifestyle choices. This increases the profit margins for everyone inside the health care industry by taking this approach. (Pollan)

In this this reading “Escape from the Western Diet” by Michael Pollan, Pollan talks about a variety of scientific nutritional theories that are believed to be responsible for the numerous number of people that have been plague by diseases due to following the “Western Diet”. But Pollan believes that these theories are invalid and states that the food and health industries are the ones to blame. He believes that both the food/health industry are to blame because when the food industry decides to release new products they use nutritional theories while the health industry does the same when creating new prescriptions and treatments. His solution to this problem is follow what Denis Burkitt suggested which is to revert and follow the diet of our

The article ‘ Escape from the Western Diet” by Michael Pollan found in the textbook “The say I say” claims that Americans must escape from the western Diet. The western diet is the cause of chronic diseases. Michael Pollan touch the point that the different nutritional theories are behind those diseases. He goes on to argue that the industries used, their nutritional theorie to release new products . Michael Pollan also accused the health industries in fact that their theories are to develop new prescriptions and treatment methode. Denis Burkit suggests that to avoid the disease, we have

the evolutionary process of humans and their nutritional requirements point to the clear fact that while our nutrition has radically changed since Paleolithic times, our biology really

Dr. James Marcum, a cardiologist at the Chattanooga Heart Institute in Tennessee claims, “Pharmaceutical drugs don’t heal people.” In fact, he states, “Much of the time they do more harm than good”(Milner). U.S. Citizens need to stop taking harmful pills and start using more natural, holistic healing methods. Everyone has probably used a pill before to relieve their pain, but there are healthier ways to feel just as good. According to the results of the National Health Interview Survey, “In 2012, 33.2% of U.S. adults used complementary health approaches”(What Complementary and Integrative Approaches Do Americans Use?). While some people believe conventional medicine is a better choice, it is clear that holistic healing can replace prescription drugs because they are more safe and effective than prescription drugs, and they are more practical in many ways.

Attention Getter: I visited Holly Drougas—our very own licensed dietician here at Virginia Western. I asked her, “What is the first thing that comes to mind when I say the word ‘Nutrition’?” She shocked me by saying, “Confusion”. With so much conflicting and confusing information from both the scientific community and the lay press, many people simply don't know what to eat to be healthy or to lose weight.

The diets of Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens are very different. The diet of the Homo sapiens shows how they were learning to adapt better to their environment, while the Neanderthals were very set in how they gathered food. Studies of nitrogen preserved in the bones of Neanderthals have shown that they consumed a substantial quantity of meat; “comparable to that eaten by contemporary wolves” (Delson et. al 2006). The current interpretation of the Neanderthal diet is that they “were most likely hunters rather than scavengers” (Delson et. al 2006). It was once thought that the Neanderthal diet was comprised mainly of meat due plant life being seasonal in the cold climate they inhabited. Evidence suggests however that the “Middle East Neanderthals ... living in the relatively warmest climate consume mostly meat” (Sawyer et al. 2007) proving that

Meat has been in our diet since the start of mankind. We eat meat everyday mindlessly. It is hard to avoid meat since it is everywhere we go. Meat is the majority of today’s food. There are very few vegetarian or vegan options in the food industry. Although, it has been growing more and more popular since it has become a lifestyle. The reason is to be the horrifying truth of today’s meat industry. For those who cannot bear the truth, pick up the vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.