Summary Of Escape From The Western Diet

“The solution, in his view, is to replace Big Food’s engineered, edible evil—through public education and regulation—with fresh, unprocessed, local, seasonal, real food.” (Freedman). Pollan has increased spite for “nutritionism,” which is the idea behind packing healthier ingredients into processed foods which is what Freedman is advocating for. Pollan’s view is much the same as some scientists, food activists, nutritionists, and celebrity chefs. He has had such an influence that the Silicon Valley caters to the wholefoods movement and the progression to familiarizing the masses with simpler eating habits (Freedman). However, being an area full of technological endeavors, the Silicon Valley sees technology as the culprit as well. The New York Times Magazine’s food writer, Mark Bittman also shares views with Pollan. In fact, Bittman has even written a cookbook on how to eat better. While most are more wholesome there are still few recipes that are high in fat. One of his recipes consists of corn being sautéed in bacon fat and then topped with bacon (Freedman).

While nutritionism is suppose to scientifically guide us to eat healthy, Pollan points out that there is no scientific evidence to back it. Instead, he provides research conducted by Harvard nutrition scientist that proves the opposite. "In the public's mind [...] words like 'low-fat' and 'fat-free' have been synonymous with heart health. It is now increasingly recognized that low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health consequences." (Pollan 43). In Based off these observations, Pollan uses inductive reasoning to draw the conclusion that nutritionism is more harmful then helpful.

In addition to bringing to light these contradicting scientific theories, Pollan goes further to include how these theories benefit the food industry as well as the health industry. Pollan observes “for the medical community too scientific theories about diet nourish business… new theories beget new drugs… and new diets organized around each new theory’s elevation of one class of nutrient and demotion of another” (Pollan, 436). Basically, Pollan is informing that the health industry wants to profit off the theories declared by making drugs in regards to the nutrients cut down on. Similarly, Pollan notes the food industry comes out with a new line of products to match with the new theories made for the western diet. He reminds the reader to escape the western diet even though it will be hard because these industries only seek to profit rather than change the way people eat for the better (Pollan, 436).

He advises us to eat only things our grandmother would recognize. Foods without any unpronounceable ingredients or high fructose corn syrup. He tells us to stop eating on the go or in front of a television. Pollan also warns us to beware the dangers of reductionist science, especially when it is applied to food. It is this part of Pollan's advice that I believe to be the most critical and informative much more than avoiding high fructose corn syrup or taking time with meals. It is the most challenging because it requires us to change the way we approach food. It requires a change not what loaf of bread we choose to buy or the places and time we spend eating, but a change in the way we think. It requires us to think in terms of relationships. But if we can start to discuss food and health concerns along with health care, environmental, and immigration issues, recognizing that they is a problem, maybe we can come closer to finding a

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.

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)

First off, in regards to a better diet, what would be considered “healthy” in the perspective of these authors? Explicitly stated by Pollan, “the most important fact about any food is not its nutritional content but its degree of processing” (Pollan 423). With this in mind, it can be determined that contrary to popular belief, how healthy something is does not depend on the nutritional facts printed on the package, but rather the amount of times the food has been processed before reaching the hands of a customer. Moreover, Pollan does not stand-alone in this belief. Zinczenko expresses that “complicating the lack of [alternative food suppliers] is the lack of information about what, exactly, we’re consuming” (Zinczenko 463).

To start off, Maxfield writes an article in response to Michael Pollan's "Escape from the Western Diet." In this piece, Maxfield points out several disagreements she was with Pollan. For instance, Maxfield is able to show how Pollan could be viewed as a hypocrite by pointing out that he came up with his own eating formula, which he originally disagreed with. The author also seems to criticize Pollan's philosophy of "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants," which she believes is a dreadful idea for any person to follow and ultimately becomes a dictate provided by an expert to those who cannot properly nourish themselves. Furthermore, both Maxfield and Pollan seem to reject nutritionism claiming that these people are in it for the money as well

On page 85 Pollan brings up a story about how in 1982, Australian Aborigines participated in an interesting experiment that shows the damage the Western diet can do, but also how luckily the human body can heal itself if it gets the right foods. The Aborigines all succumbed to westernization and one can see the effects when Pollan says, “Since leaving the bush some years before, all ten had developed type 2 diabetes; they also showed signs of insulin resistance and elevated triglycerides in the blood” (85). They had all gotten metabolic syndrome, increasing their risk for obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and possibly certain cancers. The Aborigines spent seven weeks off their Western diets and went back to their natural diets and after

Based on this 2011 documentary featuring the numerous statistics and examples from physicians on their patients making changes to their health, showed the high improvements on their health after a few weeks on a plant-based diet. They showed not only the crucial medications and prescription drugs the patients were each taking, but they helped them create exponential changes to their cholesterol, weight, and health problems of their western diet that made it possible for them to no longer take them. This documentary captured the many risks people can get such as diabetes, heart disease, arteries of blood clotting, cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and much more in which costs the United States more than a million dollar each year. According

Nutrition science is the study of micronutrients (when food is broken down its smallest components) and its impact on human health and behavior. Various curious nutritionists are conducting research so as to identify the probable nutrient due to which western diet is accused to be the source of chronic diseases. Michael Pollan explores different theories in an effort to resolve the issue. The western lifestyle has made it difficult to avoid intake of processed or industrialized food. The eating habits have significantly changed over the due course of time. Individuals maintaining a western diet are observed to be more prone to chronic disease than those who follow traditional diets. The key to healthy life is to create a filter against processed food, may it be meat or vegetables. A complete change in culture and adaptation of three rules will bring a dynamic change.

people today are considered about what they eat because many people are wary that food contents pesticide pollutants. These days more people are wary that what they eat maybe giving them life style diseases. According to many scholars changing our life style depends on our food system. According to Mark Bittman, a New York Times food writer and cookbook author, and Michael Pollan, UC Berkely professor of Journalism and author, people today severe from life style diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, and diet-related cancers. because they eat too much meat and fast food and consume too much sugar specially in the form of high fructose corn syrup. Both Bittman and Pollan advocate eating less meat and much

In this section, Pollan discusses how mankind has substituted the quantity of food for the quality of it. The amount of nutrients in food has declined since the 1950s because there has been major growth in the production of crops: the more a person grows the less nutritious it is. One reason Pollan believes this is true is because of the chemicals in the fertilizers. The chemicals make the crop grow faster so they have less time to accumulate the sufficient amount of nutrients. The fertilizer gives the plant easier access to major nutrients so the roots do not go as deep in the ground so they do not collet the natural nutrients and minerals from the soil. Crops now have many more calories per acre but each one of the calories supplies less nutrition than it did before. Because of this people eat more food but do not obtain the sufficient amount of nutrients. More people are overfed and undernourished because they eat too much food, trying to get the sufficient amount of a nutrients. Pollan strongly believe that our high-calorie, low nutrient intake is responsible for many chronic diseases in the U.S.

In the documentary of Forks Over Knives many people in America could agree that there is a huge problem with our country's eating habits and the way that we take care of ourselves. Our overload of processed and fatty foods is only part of the problem. The over consumption of meat and dairy products is also a huge issue. I remember discussing a lecture in class when we discussed nutrition. Which is the process of providing the food or obtaining it necessary for health and growth. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially among our younger population. It is very important that we keep maintain a health status and know exactly what we're putting in our system so that we can maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Nutrition science is the study of micronutrients (when food is broken down its smallest components) and its impact on human health and behavior. Nutritionists are conducting research so as to identify the probable reason due to which the adopters of western diet are more prone to chronic diseases. Michael Pollan explores different theories in an effort to resolve the issue. The western lifestyle has made it difficult to avoid intake of processed or industrialized food. The eating habits have significantly changed over the course of time. Western diet adopters are observed to be more prone to chronic disease than those who follow traditional diets. The key to healthy life is to create a filter against processed food, may it be meat or vegetables. A complete change in culture and adaptation of three rules will bring a dynamic change.