Should The Government's Food-Safety System

In the essay Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating by Mary Maxfield, a graduate student in American Studies at Bowling Green State University summarizes Journalist Michael Pollan’s theory about Americans’s unhealthy population preoccupied with the idea of eating healthy.

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

The documentary Food Inc. is a great example of commercial farming. The purpose of commercial farming is to mass produce food and animals, to feed the community. The concept of commercial farming could also go along food security. The community needs to make sure that there is enough food to feed the growing population at all times. The problem right now isn’t that there isn’t enough food, but rather that there is too much food. The Tyson company produces all kinds of meat to feed people around the country, and when doing so they tend to overproduce. With this overproduction, we are left with expired animals that cannot be produced into food for consumption, and in turn, provide extra parts that aren’t useful or helpful.

One of the most unhealthy diets in the world is that of an American. It is made up of processed foods and a good amount of television. America easily has the most fast food restaurants in the entire world. Leave it to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King or any other fast-food restaurant to serve extremely cheap and even unhealthier food at any time during the day or night. ”It tastes good so why not?” That seems to be the question many people are asking now-a-days. Because it is so easily accessible and processed, it is made to be very tasty and extremely unhealthy. Many Americans find his or herself indulging on the these fatty foods of America on a day-to-day basis. While it may taste good at the time, it has a terrible effect on your body

Most people do not take a second thought about where their food came from. Whether it be chicken, steak, or pork, the meat was most likely raised in a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). Hundreds to thousands of animals in horrid conditions from birth to slaughter at these factory farms. While damaging animals, CAFOs also damage the environment and the effects of these farms are worsening, with more farms resorting to these methods. Popular brands using these methods include global producers like Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods. The United States Department of Agriculture defines a CAFO as an Animal Feeding Operation that houses “...more than 1000 animal units...” (nrcs.usda.gov). These “units” are later defined as “...an animal

Conditions at America’s meatpacking plants have become more dangerous in part due to the federal government lack of enforcing health and safety laws. During the

“I aimed for the public’s hearts, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” This quote was in response to the reaction of Upton Sinclair’s ground breaking exposé, “The Jungle”. On February 26, 1906 Sinclair shocked the Nation by exposing the horrors of slaughter houses and meat packing plants. Thousands of people have died from food-borne illnesses. E-coli, along with other diseases resulting from filthy food processing was revealed as the murderer. As shocking as it might have been back then, it is even more alarming to find out that conditions have not improved in the last one hundred nine years. Food-borne illnesses are still an extremely common occurrence. People should not have to worry about whether their purchased food, food that was “approved” by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is safe to eat. Consumers shouldn’t have to worry about tainted or dirty meat. Cleaner meat packing facilities and stricter meat regulation on the part of the USDA should be a standard. Eating a burger should not have to be a life or death situation.

The food system in the U.S. has changed a lot over these decades. In the past, people grew crops in their land and vegetables in their gardens. Today, the food system is dominated by the industrial farms and food companies. The industrial food system prevents us from knowing the food. We do not know where the food comes from, how it is produced, and what the conditions that animals live in are. Animals, such as cattle and chickens, are raised in concentrated feedlots where the conditions are terrible and the space is narrow. When it comes to the meatpacking, we do not know how the animals are slaughtered, gutted, and skinned. The operations are invisible and conducted behind walls. The industrial food system aims to produce more food faster and more cheaply. However, it hides lots of truths, such as its effect on consumers’ health, the environment, and the society. If there were more transparency in the food system, the inhumane practice of meatpacking would be reduced; the living conditions of animals would be improved; fewer fertilizers and pesticides would be used in agriculture; consumers would have the chance to see how the food is produced and make a wiser choice of what to eat; and the current industrial food system might be replaced.

The Western Diet mainly consists of fried foods, refined grains, sugar, high carbohydrate and fats, and meats (3). It has been hypothesized that having a Western Diet increases one’s chances for developing depression. There has been a great deal of research into why the western diet increase’s one chance of having depression. A common sense reason maybe that the Western Diet consisted of large amounts carbohydrates, fats and sugars which promotes obesity and then causes depression (1). More scientific evidence suggest that having a improper diet like the Western Diet negatively affects peripheral and central dopamine, which are neurotransmitters (chemical which transmit signals across the synapse from the nerve cell to the target cell)

When eating a burger from a fast food restaurant, the average person does not stop to think how the food they are eating was made. As convenient as it may seem, the fast food industry is a $200 billion a year giant, and many people simply do not know the impact that it truly has. In Fast Food Nation some believe that food safety regulations can be sidestepped and low meat quality and poor management are putting the health of many Americans in danger.

coli, another undisclosed truth comes to light in this documentary. To get rid of the E. coli, our meat products are thoroughly cleansed with ammonia. Ammonia is a chemical that most Americans recognize as a household cleaning item, and now this chemical is in our meat. We are being secretly exposed to this chemical and it is not even guaranteed to work 100% of the time. However, this is not the only chemical used in our food. When eating an out of season fruit, Americans run the risk of eating a fruit that is artificially ripened. Since tomatoes cannot grow in America in the winter, they are picked while green from overseas. Once they arrive in America and are ready to go to market, they are ripened with ethylene gas. Ethylene gas “contains traces of arsenic and phosphorus hydride” (Siddiqui). These traces can cause chronic health defects such as “vomiting, diarrhea with or without blood, burning sensation of the chest and abdomen, thirst, weakness, permanent eye damage, etc.” (Siddiqui). As we can see, the major food companies hide very serious issues from the public, because if they knew the truth, many consumers would be appalled and possibly stop buying their products.

During the first week of class, four readings were assigned. One of the readings, “Food and Eating: Some Persisting Questions,” by Sidney Mintz, discusses the paradoxes of food. Although food seems like a straightforward concept, it is actually extremely complicated. According to Mintz, there are five paradoxes, including: the importance of food to one’s survival, yet we take it for granted, how people stick to their foodways, but are willing to change, whether the government should allow people to freely choose food or if they should protect the people through regulations, the difference in food meanings according to gender, and the morality of eating certain foods. All of these paradoxes give people questions to think about, making this an extremely philosophical look at food studies. It also mentions that food must be viewed through the cultural context that it is in, which became important in “The Old and New World Exchange”, by Mintz, and “Maize as a Culinary Mystery”, by Stanley Brandes. These discuss the diffusion of foods after 1492 in different ways. The Mintz reading gives an overview of all of the foods spread from the Americas to the Old World, and vice-a-versa, but does not go terribly in depth on the social changes and effects of specific foods. Brandes focuses on the cultural impact of specifically maize on the European diet, noticing that most Western Europeans shunned it. He studies the cultural implications of this, concluding that maize was not accepted

What do Americans really know about the different foods they eat? There are two types of foods, which are processed foods and unprocessed foods. Processed foods are foods that are packaged, canned, frozen, and put on shelves. Processed foods are unhealthy because they are high in calories, trans-fat, and saturated fat. Here are several different processed foods that many Americans eat quite often, sausage, hot dogs, ham, boxed cakes, bread, milk, and cheeses. Non-processed foods are fresh and natural foods. Non- Processed foods are foods that have not been altered. Examples of Non-Processed foods are fruit, vegetables, and nuts. Some processed food come from farm animals, but how many people know about some of

The way we eat food has changed drastically in the past few decades. When I think of the process of how our food is made and produced, I typically think of a farm with animals laying around, eating grass, content with everything. Also, I picture ripe red tomatoes, apples, and sweet smelling fruit being pick right when it is ripened so it can get to our grocery stores. This is typically how most people picture our food coming from a farm. It is how they want us to picture it, because it is a happy image: but, it is far from the reality of how things are.