Soul Food Junkies Analysis

Junk food refers to cheap food containing high levels of calories from sugar or fat with little fiber, protein, vitamins or minerals. People in the United States consume massive amounts of these unhealthy products everyday that are produced by big industries like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. Investigative reporter Michael Moss argues that the food giants have hooked people with addictive foods that are harming our health. How do they do this? I strongly agree with Moss’s agreement because the food giants use schemes to advertise and market their unhealthy products to make them appear delectable. Thus, giving the viewer of the advertisement a high urgency to buy and eat the product that would eventually lead them to obesity.

Thousands of children around America are increasingly joining the obesity epidemic and are struggling to get out of it. In the documentary, Fed Up, by Stephanie Soechtig, she creates a documentary that targets young teenagers and parents to uncover the truth of the epidemic and reveal how the food industry is hurting the children 's diet by making them become addicted to sugar. It explains how it is beyond people 's willpower and exercise alone that solves the epidemic, rather it is the food industries ' fault for the nfood they produce. Soechtig uses pathos, ethos and logos by documenting personal stories from young obese teenagers, providing a numerous amount of credible sources from a wide range of experts, and having evidence for the epidemic.

Give a summary of the book/documentary. The documentary Diet for a New America explores and exposes all of the negative health and environmental consequences of the meat production-and-consumption cycle, as well as the cruel treatment and suffering of animals. (Robbins, Diet For A New America) The beginning point that was made in the documentary is that we should learn to be true to ourselves and our inner voice and be conscious of the food we eat. If we would listen to our inner voice we have the power to heal ourselves, to heal the environment and our planet.

All ethnic groups have their own language, food, and way of living. Some can even call their food, “soul food.” Soul food can be described as “food made with feeling and care,” but in America, soul food simply refers to African-American cuisine (A History of Soul Food). In Imamu Amiri Baraka’s essay, “Soul Food” he describes how shocked he was to read an article that stated how “African-Americans have no language and no characteristic food.” So he argued against that supposed fact. I too was shocked and am agreeing with Baraka’s argument. African-Americans have had soul food for hundreds of years, if anything that is all they have ever had. Since slaves had no control or choice in life, cooking became a way

Michael Moss a investigative reporter for New York Times also the author. The Extraordinary Science of Junk Food was first appeared in the New York Times Magazine on February 24, 2013. On April 8, 1999, C.E.O from Nestle, Kraft and Nabisco, General Mills, Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola, and Mars gathered to talk on the obesity epidemic. The vice president of kraft named Michael Mudd. Mudd gave a presentation about obesity, he told them to cut the use of sugar, salt, and fats. Also to change the manner they advertise their products. After the presentation was over the C.E.O of General Mills rose and said that people chose freely that if they wanted a healthy product then there it was.

To support this claim, I will present two very popular yet controversial documentaries that were aimed to educate viewers on a couple of compelling societal issues. I will explore how the inclusion of pathos, logos and ethos in ‘Sicko’ by Michael Moore and ‘Supersize Me’ by Morgan Spurlock clarified their messages and made their arguments very convincing. These two documentary films show that the values adhered to by the two filmmakers, and probably by the media firms they work with as well as their corporate sponsors often influence the kind of information and at which angle it is presented to the

In the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”, the writer Michael Moss mentioned that growing weight problem happened in America has become a major health crisis issue. While people are talking about obesity, they care more about how much sugar, salt and fat they consume during a day, which kind of processed food does harm to their body. It seems that food companies have an inalienable relationship with consumers’ health conditions, because they provide us with what we eat. These companies made their food taste better (putting sugar, salt and fat in product) for attracting more customers, and also tried to protect their individual customers from the “obesity epidemic”, which is named by Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Moss, 260), without losing market share. It put them a moral judgment of creating food that customers like or be good to customers’ health. However, another writer Ethan Watters describe a story in his article “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” that in the market of the depressant drug in Japan, pharmaceutical companies faced a dilemma. They found it so hard to construct a Western-view concept of “depression” among a large-scale demographic of Japanese people, to contribute to their mental health problem, and to make a profit for sure. In the former case, food companies applied multiple marketing strategies to collective demographics to create more individuals’ desire of consumption, while they were striving to protect

The act of consuming food is one of the most intimate parts of the human experience. Humans eat for sustenance and pleasure, for better or for worse. The necessity of food is one of the unavoidable, unchangeable facts of life. Everyone eats; therefore no one is immune or exempt from the consequences of prioritizing cheapness and convenience over nutritional value and environmental impact. The 2008 documentary film, Food Inc., argues that in the last half century, the food industry has become increasingly corrupt and toxic. This industrial behemoth is underhandedly subsidized by the government and supported by largely ignorant, apathetic, and captive consumers. This culinary crisis, perpetuated and concealed by agribusiness monopolies, affects everyone. Specifically targeting average, supermarket frequenting, middle class, American consumers, this documentary scrutinizes corporate farming and concludes that the products of such an unwholesome process are undeniably unhealthy, and consuming them is not only harmful but also unethical. Filmmaker Robert Kenner contends that the methods currently in practice are dishonest, environmentally hazardous, and abusive to both animals and employees. The film effectively and engagingly utilizes the rhetorical strategies of pathos, logos, and ethos in the form of personal testimonies, manipulated cinematic effects such as lighting and music, and disturbing visuals to educate, disillusion, and galvanize

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill stated, “ If you want to wipe out an entire generation of people and engage in a 21st century genocide, all you have to do is keep doing what we are doing and deprive people of access to healthy food.” Bryon Hurt 's documentary Soul Food Junkies challenges and informs people 's way of thinking when it comes to soul food. Questioning if dishes such as fried chicken, buttery mac and cheese, smokey ribs and greens in pork fat are significant to the black culture or just a recipe for an early death. So, he used his father 's story, Jackie Hurt, about his ways of not giving up his artery-clogging classic soul food. At one point, Bryon Hurt wanted to be just like his father so he ate just like him. Especially on Sundays for the breakfast ritual which included grits, cheesy eggs, salt pork and bacon on toast. He felt that was a way to bond with his father. Jackie Hurt was not only consuming soul food dishes on a daily basis but he never exercised. This lead to serve weight gain, but he was not changing his eating habits even though his family did. He was later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that took his life so young.

Throughout the film, there are two main focuses. These are ‘a Western diet is unhealthy’ and ‘a whole-foods, plant-based diet is the solution.’ Understanding the contextual meaning is critical to dissecting the rhetorical devices because otherwise the intent of the documentary’s creators would be hidden. Dividing instances of ethos, logos, and pathos into the two focuses allows for a clear explanation of each. Through separation, one can focus on purpose and effectiveness.

Collin, great job on comparing Anthony Bourdain No Reservations and the River Monsters TV shows, I never connected the act of participant observation with the media of television, but it makes perfect sense. It brings to mind the television show Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern and parts of the cult classic film, The Faces of Death. Both of which reveal norms in other cultures that would be 100% taboo in western culture, such as eating dog or horse as Houk wrote about. The only difference that came to mind over and over as I was reading was, I could not help but realize that our survival instinct would win out over our cultural beliefs every time if we were pushed to the extreme of being forced to choose between the two. As was the case with

In a society that is facing numerous problems, such as economic devastation, one major problem is often disregarded, growing obesity. As the American society keeps growing, so does growth of the fast food industry and the epidemic of obesity. In order to further investigate the main cause of obesity, Morgan Spurlock, the film director and main character, decides to criticize the fast food industry for its connection with obesity in America. In his documentary Spurlock performs a radical experiment that drives him to eat only from McDonald's and order a super-sized meal whenever he is asked. By including visual and textual techniques, rhetorical appeals, and argumentative evidences, Morgan Spurlock was able

A documentary needs to convince you of what their “advertising” with the content within the film. The film uses diagrams, video, and written fact to get the point across that food is not food anymore. For example, an average regular chicken takes about three months to grow to full size, in the documentary to shows us the with the help of genetically modified food a chicken can be bred with more meat, bigger, and in a shorter amount of time. Is that a real chicken? I have no idea, in my eyes, it isn’t real food anymore. In addition to this finding, the documentary did a night vision shot of how our food is treated. The workers that went to go pick up the chicken threw them, kicked them, stepped on them, etc. Even if the animal is going off to be killed that is no way to treat it! The world is cruel, that is what the documentary shows us. We are shut behind closed doors, in the dark about what are food goes through. Truth needs to be put into not only a documentary, but some part of any movie to help fuel the imagination that anything good or evil is

In “The Pleasures of Eating” Wendell Berry wants the reader to recognize that eating is a cultural act. He believes we are eaters not consumers and that we should have more knowledge about the food we eat. Berry wants the reader to questions where the food is coming from, what condition is it produced in and what chemicals may it contains. He has found that the food industries blind us to what we are consuming and the effect it has on us. At last Berry believes that we must eat responsibly to live free.

The movie that I chose to watch is Food Inc. The reason I chose this movie is because I think not a lot of people do not know what’s in the food that they are eating. The film is an American documentary which examines the manufacturing production of meat, vegetables and grains. I think the main idea behind the documentary is do you know about the food that you are consuming? The food that we eat has a lot more history to it than we know. The way we eat has changed drastically in the last fifty years than in the previous 10,000 years. The embedded energy required for plant based foods is very low compared to meat based foods. Meat based foods requires a lot of machinery which in turn requires electricity. The workers are also being ill-treated by the owners because they work long hours for a very small salary. The farmers have no choice but to work for these large meat companies because they are bounded by debt to the companies. The film shows how fast food places are hiring workers to do one task over and over again for the minimum wage; the result was the fast food wonder that flounced the United States.