Food Essay

In life, many people participate in various daily events and activities that help them enjoy being who they are. People may enjoy getting together with friends, going to the mall, going to an amusement park or simply finding relaxation in nature. However, a big part of everyone’s life is of course eating and many people find pleasure in doing so. Eating is a very enjoyable and delectable must for everyone but should be done so, like everything in life, in a smart and intelligent way. Being smart and perceptive when eating is a large part of nutrition.

Ingredients and recipes for cooking soul food change for varies reasons. Numerous slaves could not read or write, so the recipes were passed along orally. Additionally, soul food cooking changes from region to region dependent upon on settler impact and ingredients special to a particular region. For instance, low country soul food generally alludes to an area along South Carolina's coast. Ingredients special to South Carolina's coast are rice, crabs, oysters, shrimp, and sweet potatoes. In Louisiana, Gumbo is customarily a New Orleans Creole dish. The primary ingredient is okra, or quingombo, a native African plant. Creole food has also been impacted by the Spanish, French, Caribbean and Native Americans settlers (Rhyne, 2015).

In the introduction to “The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Our National Eating Disorder,” author Michael Pollan argues that many American’s in today’s contemporary society have lost touch with where their food comes from and which foods actually are nutritious. We have become an unaware society and allowed our daily simple routine of eating healthy meals to become a complex mess of fear for being unhealthy. I feel that Pollan is making an effective argument in stating his beliefs and factual knowledge on the confused relationship our nation has with food by using factual knowledge and evidence to persuade the audience that he is credible.

When Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma was published, many readers began questioning him for advice on what they should eat in order to stay healthy. In his more recent book, In Defense of Food, he responds with three rules, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants"(Pollan 1). This seven word response seems too simple for a relatively complicated question, but as he further elaborates these rules into specific guidelines, this summary turns out to be surprisingly complete. Using inductive and deductive reasoning, he debunks the ideas behind nutritionism and food science, and proves that the western diet is the cause for food related diseases. Inductive reasoning is when a

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

As a culture and as individuals, we no longer seem to know what we should and should not eat. When the old guides of culture and national cuisine and our mothers’ advice no longer seem to operate, the omnivore’s dilemma returns and you find yourself where we do today—utterly bewildered and conflicted about one of the most basic questions of human life: What should I eat? We’re buffeted by contradictory dietary advice: cut down on fats one decade, cut down on carbs the next. Every day’s newspaper brings news of another ideal diet, wonder-nutrient, or poison in the food chain. Hydrogenated vegetable oils go from being the modern alternatives to butter to a public health threat, just like that. Food marketers bombard us with messages that this or that food is “heart healthy” or is “part of a nutritious meal”. Without a stable culture of food to guide us, the omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance. We listen to scientists, to government guidelines, to package labels—to anything but our common sense and traditions. The most pleasurable of activities—eating—has become heavy with anxiety. The irony is, the more we worry about what we eat, the less healthy and fatter we seem to become.

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

In Michael Pollan’s essay, “The American Paradox”, Pollan argues that American’s hold falsified ideas if one is more focused on nutrition. Americans have too much going on in their head with trying to be healthy, that they do not actually become healthy. The notion that “a notably unhealthy population preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthy” (Pollan 268) is what Pollan defines as the “American paradox”. The amount of time spent focusing on healthy eating habits decreases the joy one contains. Pollan identifies many issues that contribute to what is wrong with the way Americans think about eating today. For instance, we spend too much time and money trying to be healthy, we have strayed away from the past as new inventions occurred and last being we listen to “flawed science”. Despite the fact that many may say they see positive results from focusing on nutrition and health, Americans actually receive negative outcomes from nutrition and health.

The essay “Eat Food: Food Defined,” from Michael Pollan’s 2008 book In Defense of Food was written to address the American general public about the food industry. Pollan focuses on relatable topics as examples, such as family, common food items, and common belief that everyone wants to be healthy. The essay brings across Pollan’s point by establishing his credibility, explaining why this is important to us, and telling us how to react to the given facts. Pollan makes the readers inquire how we define food by drawing our attention to the importance of examining our food before eating it.

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.

David H. Freedman, a consulting editor for John Hopkins and author of several books, writes in “How Junk food can End Obesity” about the dangers of ruling out Fast Food as a way to decrease obesity in society. He argues that using nutrients to gauge the healthiness of a food is an adequate way to increase health in society, and that most “healthy” foods contain a lot of unhealthy ingredients that do not promote health. He also advocates small changes of about 50-100 calories in meals to encourage people to stay on their diets and promote long-term weight loss. He also points out the severe monetary difference between health foods and fast food. He ultimately wants to promote using the forum of food in society to decrease obesity in society, rather than making the large leap from junk food to whole, natural foods.

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

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan is a comprehensive look into the present day food culture of the United States. Throughout the book the author tries to find out the true composition of the diet that is consumed by Americans on a daily basis. There is an excessive dependence by the American population on the government to know which food is good for them. This paper will critically analyze the book as well as the stance that the author has taken. Since there is a deluge of information about diets and health available today, the relevance of this well researched book in the present day world cannot be emphasized enough. Its relevance is not limited to the United States alone but to the entire human society which is moving towards homogenous food habits.

102). One might impugn that it is not poverty but lack of education that affects the obesity epidemic. It does not require a mathematician to comprehend that choosing a two dollar case of Honey Buns as opposed to a six dollar bag of apples will equal more food in the refrigerator. Generally, processed foods are more “energy dense” than garden-fresh foods; they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which make them both less satisfying and more calorific (Pollan, 2006). Provisions similar to fruits and vegetables contain high water content that permits individuals to feel satiated rather swiftly. Nutritious meals are more expensive, less tasty, and are more time consuming to prepare, fostering unhealthy eating patterns. On special occasions, parents will treat their children to McDonalds where everything is “super-sized”. Adults and children can acquire debauched consumption patterns because they don’t comprehend the quantity they have enthusiastically ingested. Pollan (2006) stated that “Well-designed fast food has a fragrance and flavor all its own, a fragrance and flavor only nominally connected to hamburgers or French fries or for that matter to particular food” (p. 111).

The rise of health concerns continues to proliferate throughout the country from increasing obesity rates to the astonishing number of our population with high blood pressure or diabetes. It’s enough to make anyone want to second-guess everything they eat and put in into their bodies. We ask our doctor’s, and ourselves “what can be done?” Eat right, and exercise. Those are the parameters for maintaining a healthy life. So it’s only natural that across the board we’ve got numerous exercise programs to help you lose weight fast or build lean muscle. Then we’ve got every diet under the sun, the no carb diet, high protein diet and all juice diets. Through research we can find and utilize programs and healthy habits that we can practice