Food As Thought : Resisting The Moralization Of Eating Essay

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

Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto is an eye-opening analysis of the American food industry and the fear driven relationship many of us have with food. He talks in depth about all the little scientific studies, misconceptions and confusions that have gathered over the past fifty years. In the end provide us with a piece of advice that should be obvious but somehow is not, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He follows the history of nutritionism and the industrialization of food, in hopes to answer one question….. how and when "mom" ceded control of our food choices to nutritionists, food marketers and the government.

Healthy, unhealthy, good food, bad food, fat, skinny, diet, weight: all these words have been used to define what society views as the key to a balanced or unbalanced life. In the essay, Food for Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating, Mary Maxfield takes a look into the stigma of eating habits, health, and dieting in western society. Maxfield supports her claims by analyzing and refuting Michael Pollan’s essay, Escape from the Western Diet. Although it is common knowledge that many people struggle to understand what is essentially “healthy” and “unhealthy”, there are many experts in the field of nutrition that claim to have the key to a perfect diet. Maxfield ultimately disclaims these ideas by bringing to light information that

Whether or not a person wants a burger and french-fries’ or a salad from the salad bar, the decision should be up to him/her. Two articles share views on food, “What You Eat Is Your Business” by Radley Balko and “Junking Junk Food” by Judith Warner. These two authors wrote articles about how they felt about food and how it’s related to obesity. However, Radley Balko would not approve of Judith Warner’s views on food for the reason that the two authors have different viewpoints on the aspect of the government helping people to make better food choices. Warner and Balko also has different views on the ideas which are that eating is a psychological matter; and eating healthy should be a personal matter.

Over the last several decades, the diet of society has been continually changing. This has resulted in different formulas for nutrition and the proper portions of foods that must be consumed. To fully understand the various arguments requires looking at numerous viewpoints. This will be accomplished by focusing on Michael Pollan's Escape from the Western Diet in contrast with Mary Maxfield's Food as thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating. These views will highlight how diet and nutrition is based upon individual opinions. This is the focus of the thesis.

Many Americans are concern about the increment of disease and obesity caused by the limited options of healthy food, “since America is saturated with junk food advertising”(Khullar 135). However, in consequence of the absence of an American cuisine, fast food restaurants and foods high in fats offered by supermarkets, has become the first option to Americans. After all, Pollan’s argument that the lack of a stable traditional cuisine is the consequence of America’s national eating disorder and the steady national diet is reasonable since there are many factors that support his claim. For example, Mary Roach, in Liver and Opinions: Why We Eat What We Eat and Despite the Rest, claims that the food we eat is influenced by people’s cultural background; in other words, people are used to eating what their parents feed them when they were kids. “In addition, Americans have a conflict with having a stable eating habit; they tend to change their diet often”(Roach 123). Overall, Pollan’s is comprehensible while he argues that Americans do not have a stable culture of food, which causes an instability in people’s

In the Introduction to “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, Mary Maxfield argues that food and the way we consume it is not something that should define the obesity epidemic in America. A controversial issue discussed has been whether we should have theories or ideas where diet works best to increase weight loss or whether we should have any diets to begin with. On one hand, Maxfield argues against the Health Professor Michael Pollan, who proposes a diet idea to reduce the problem of unhealthy eating in America. While also reprimanding scientists and health doctors who suggests their own different diets. On the other hand, she introduces that food is just food and does not need to be differentiated since one may seem

Americans today are no strangers to stretching every dollar earned in an attempt to live the American dream. Most people work long hours and eat on the fly with very little thought to what, or where, the food they have purchased came from. The reason food is so inexpensive has not been a concern to the average American, but the article written by Michael Pollan “The Food Movement Rising” attempts to convince the people that it is time to remove the blinders and take an accounting of the situation that America finds itself in. With obesity at epic proportions, and preventable diseases like

“The Cato Institute’s” Policy analyst, Radley Balko, in his article “What You Eat Is Your Business,” talks about the idea of obesity and whose fault it is. Balko’s purpose is to convey the idea that obesity is the individual’s responsibility, not the government’s or anyone else’s for that matter. Ultimately, Balko’s “What You Eat Is Your Business” has a strong hold on ethos, pathos, and logos, making for a successful and persuasive article.

Michael Pollan in his book titled ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ takes a critical look at the food culture in the Unites States. According to him, the question that seems to bother most Americans is simply ‘What should we have for dinner today?’ To Pollan, Americans face this dilemma because they do not have a proper tradition surrounding food. ‘The lack of a steadying culture of food leaves us especially vulnerable to the blandishments of the food scientist and the marketer for whom the omnivore’s dilemma is not so much a dilemma as an opportunity; (Pollan). He cites the example of the Atkins diet and how an entire nation changed its eating habits almost overnight. A nation that had deep rooted food culture values would

Throughout our entire lives, we have been convinced to eat “healthy” so that we can live a longer and happier life with low risks of diseases and cancers. However, what does it really mean to eat “healthy” since there are many health claims that are confusing us about what we should or shouldn’t eat. With the cloud of confusion revolving a “healthy” diet, Michael Pollan, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, writes “Unhappy Meals” detailing what it means to eat healthy. Although eating healthy is essential, there are factors that play a role into a person’s diet. For instance, in what ways does income affect an adult’s decision to eating “healthy?” Many people assume that a person’s ability to eat healthy is based on their

French fries, cheeseburgers, and milkshakes are all too common today in the United States, though it may taste great, are the health issues that come with it worth that great tasting meal? That health issue is something everyone sees day to day whether they realize it or not, that health issue is obesity. Obesity has been a big issue in the United States for many years and it continues to be one of the biggest arguments whether it is the fault of the people or not. Radley Balko, senior editor at Reason, believes that the government isn’t doing the correct things when it comes to fighting obesity. As Balko states in his article “What You Eat Is Your Business”, “Instead of manipulating or

While you were inhaling that 800 calorie, grease-filled double cheeseburger supreme, did you ever think about what the effect on your body would be? Well neither did any other American who has consumed the same fatty foods. Over the years, Americans have consumed hundreds of thousands of pounds of fast, fatty foods, and yet, up until now they’ve ignored what this is doing to their bodies. In today’s modern times people are concerned with their body image and the number that appears on the scale. Yet up until this point, weight and body image weren’t heavily stressed. Though eating disorders have been around for decades, Americans haven’t been concerned with them up until this point. Because the media’s heavy influence in today’s society, Americans

But the eugenics carried down by the contemporaries cannot estimate for the increase in the percent of individuals who are obese. People assuming a duty for their health is the sole method they will eternally be healthy. The many government cases toward McDonald 's only display how much of a charged game our nation’s fitness can be. Couple teenagers, Ashley Pelman and Jazlyn Bradley, decided to claim the McDonald 's Company and the brace Bronx franchises for losses correlated to their obesity. These kinds of incidents have grown more popular in the latest decade. The fast diet series has not yet punished because of their attorneys’ easy case, “Every obligated person knows what is in merchandises such as burgers and grills, as well as the value to one 's waistline, and probable to one 's health, of incredibly consuming those foods over an extended time.” They contemplate the case of these youngsters still made it to the government is that they were children. The Justice cast it out because he knew that if a teen is old sufficient to decide as a grown-up, then they can be responsible for their mass (Wald 1).

Although the traditional American household has developed alongside the constant improving food industry, misconceptions in marketing and convenience of food have come with it aiding to the decrease in healthy eating. During the 19th century increasing expenses started to affect families, food writer/critic Mark Bittman discussed on his “What's wrong with what we eat” Ted talk, how roles within the families have developed into more accountable and self-dependent roles. Fast food chains would arise and spread throughout like wildfire, whereas local organic markets would slowly disappear, but not entirely. Unhealthy eating has become nothing less than a bad habit, and it will continue to intensify as convenience is magnified.