Persuasive Essay On Fast Food

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.

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.

The problem with food production in America is the mistreatment of livestock, the overproduction of corn in America, and the amount of corn feeded to the animals ; these issues affect consumers’ health because of the amount of diabetes has been increasing over years. Michael Pollan in "When a Crop Becomes King” he explains that the government pays for corn to be grown a lot more then it should be ,David Barboza in the article “If You Pitch it , They will Eat It” the way companies just want to get into kids mind by tricking them into telling their parents to buy them unhealthy food just for the toy it comes with, In “Pleasures of Eating,” Wendell Berry most of the people just rather be eating out then making food. There is uncertainty about the way food is produce because we cannot control people on what they

However, unlike the view of David Zinczenko, Radley Balko, a senior editor at Reason and author of “What You Eat Is Your Business”, takes a strong clear stance that Americans are to blame for their own actions and health. Balko illustrates that the government is spending millions of dollars on changing the distribution food, such as what is being sold in school cafeterias and calling obesity a nationwide health crisis. He expands this idea by stating, “A society where everyone is responsible for everyone else’s well-being is a society more apt to accept government restrictions” (159). Basically, he believes this is a misguided resolution in the fact that government should not be concerned with intervening and restricting the food options for the entire population, but should be with individuals harboring responsibility for their own health.

Would you like to have no decisions on the healthiness of your food, and being able to only eat fast food, fried foods, etc. Most people would say no and rightfully so, people should be able to have choices on the foods they want to eat whether it’s healthy, unhealthy, fast food, farm grown, we shouldn’t have only unhealthy foods for our choices of what we eat. In the film Food Inc. directed by Robert Kenner there is a part in the movie that talks about the food choices of consumers. A point that was talked about for a decent amount of time in this part was how healthier foods are more expensive than fast food. This stood out to me because it’s true it cost more to eat healthy than it does to just go through a drive through. This is outrageous it should be the opposite, we should have to spend more for fast food than healthy foods. While at most fast food places there are ways you can eat healthy food but it is still more expensive than just buying a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets. During this part of the film a family was talking and saying that they have to choose whether to eat healthier food or get there father/husbands medicine so he could work. A family has to choose between those to things and that is not fair to anyone that has to make that decision. The family wanted to have better food and to not always be eating fast food meals but they don’t really have a choice and that is heartbreaking to see.

After reading chapters 15 and 21 in our Current Issues and Enduring Questions book and viewing Forks Over Knives, I am afraid I do not see this worrisome food issue in America improving in the near future. Obesity is a known epidemic and it is widespread throughout the entire country. According to the documentary film, Forks Over Knives, “We spend $2.2 trillion a year on healthcare: over five times more than the defense budget.” This quote reveals the issue regarding the state of health and by maintaining a healthier diet not only do people benefit, but the government does as well. The current relationship between food and health industries brings an uncertainty that should be seen as a critical concern to the eyes of the public. Too many people

The basic survival needs of human beings include a small list of four things: food, water, clothing, and shelter. After watching an interview with Robert Kenner, the director of Food, Inc., I began to realize that the food humans are eating is actually decreasing are survivability. Within the excerpts from the movie and the dialogue amongst the interviewers, it was made apparent that the food industry has been able to completely deceive the consumers. Instead of choosing food for quality, individuals choose food by lowest price. As Kenner said in the video, “we have skewed our food system to the bad calories” (2:38). Instead of healthy home cooked meals, families are purchasing fast food for its convenience and low cost. However, the video made a very interesting stance in regards to this mentality. Although individuals are paying the lowest price for food in history, the cost of treating diseases caused by unhealthy eating has grown to be higher than ever before (8:04).

The nation has developed a cheap food model. The kind of food Americans eat is the kind that is most profitable, commercial. This source of nutrition has caused over eighteen percent of children in the nation to become obese or overweight. If the obesity epidemic is not taken seriously the nation will have to pay the price. Not only adults but future generations are at a higher risk of developing severe heart conditions earlier than past generations. If improvements are not made, our children will die younger than us.

Food production has become a problem in America because as humans we do not enjoy the pleasure of questioning of what is in our food while we eat and we allow the industrial food market to advertise to our children to set them on an early path to obesity. In”Pleasures of Eating” by Wendell Berry, he discusses that the goal of food industrialism is for people to buy more pre-cooked food, however Berry argues against that, trying to persuade the readers to enjoy their food responsibly. Michael Pollan in “When a Crop Becomes King” addresses how corn is impoverishing our health and environment since we only rely on it too much because of the many uses it has. David Barboza asserts that the food market advertise towards children to set them on an early path to obesity in his article “If you Pitch It,They Will Eat It.” I agree that industrial farming threatens the lives of everyone because in America the health of children is declining sixteen percent with the food we continue to consumer blindlessly.

The world population is increasing at an exponential rate. Along with it is an increase of mouths to feed and more food to be created to feed them. Many options come about when feeding the population, organic food, regular healthy food, fast food, fattening food etc. Many times, parents and American society as whole choose to go the unhealthier, cheaper and tastier route when

When faced with the task of providing nutritious and healthy food to a large population, the American government seems to neglect both ideas; instead, we are fed diseased, pesticized food concepts. Why concepts? Because the food we eat daily is a mere reminder that general American health means nothing, and large profits are everything. Food is now mass produced, the idea of farms and mills have been completely removed from the process of food making and replaced with machines and large factories. Though we think we have escaped this concept of Mcdonaldization regarding our food, we have not, the food industry continues to practice this basic infrastructure: Control, Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability,

Most kids around the world are diabetic and overweight and something needs to be done about it. I see a lot of kids at my school and in public that are overweight. Many of those kids have a plate full of food. Most kids eat a lot of junk food which is unhealthy for them. Paragraph 1, 2, and 3 talk about overweight kids and how they can live healthier lives.

The nutrients in food are something that a human cannot live without, yet so many people are deprived of a nutritious diet. Healthy eating habits are hard for many to obtain with the economy being as bad as it is. Healthy food is pricey and many low income families cannot afford the correct groceries. A healthy diet is not only costly money wise but health wise as well. Quick unhealthy meals can cause very pricey health problems. Even with assistance, finding the funds to support a nutritional diet in the United States is very difficult. Obtaining and keeping a healthy diet in the United States seams merely impossible to most citizens, with no change looking bright in the future.

For more than a century, the U.S. government has been telling people what to eat. In the beginning of the book, the author gives a history of American diets and health over the last 100 years. This is important for readers to understand how dietary advice has affected what and how people eat. In 1900, the leading causes of death were infectious diseases, nutrient deficiency, and malnutrition, especially among the poor. Government nutritionists urged people to eat more of a variety of foods in order to prevent nutritional deficiencies and related diseases. Throughout the 1900’s, housing, sanitation, and nutrition improved due to an expanding economy, which resulted in a decline in diseases caused from nutritional deficiencies. Today, the leading causes of death are chronic diseases associated with excessive or unbalanced intake of food and nutrients (p 31). Despite the tremendous advances in medicine over the years, conditions directly

The food Americans will acquire today appears cheap and easy but, society does not comprehend where our food comes from exactly and the treatment of the food. Moreover, food during the depression was scarce and now, Americans lavous in food choices at every corner thus the American trademark of this century. Therefore, families of four approximately eat different meals per person and food in stores resides indefinitely. With choices at such a luxury, society forgot where our food comes from. Food consist of more than the happy cow on milk and cheese, food resides not on a farm, but in a crowded, dirty, disease ridden, building waiting to be slaughtered. Consequently the food Americans receive spreads more incurable and unheard of diseases because the government does not tell society the treatment of our food.