The Importance of Length in Lisa Miller's 'Divided We Eat' and Eric Schlosser's 'One thing to do about food'

Thinking about the importance and significance of food respective to our health, ethnic culture and society can cause cavernous, profound, and even questionable thoughts such as: “Is food taken for granted?”, “Is specialty foods just a fad or a change in lifestyle?”, and even “Is food becoming the enemy.” Mark Bittman, an established food journalist, wrote an article called “Why take food seriously?” In this article, Bittman enlightens the reader with a brief history lesson of America’s appreciation of food over the past decades. This history lesson leads to where the social standing of food is today and how it is affecting not only the people of America, but also the rest of the world.

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 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.

McCorcle’s essay ‘Her Chee-to Heart is an informational essay with persuasive undertone that’s main point is that food has a positive emotional value. While the essay is best defined as informational, much of the essay's foundation is coming from the author's personal experience and thus, a more persuasive tone becomes embedded. There is a clear limitation exposed in McCorcle’s essay that cannot be ignored. While she promotes food as a form of comfort, it is unhealthy food that is most associated with in her essay. Turning to unhealthy foods as a form of comfort can develop into a detrimental habit.

There were a few things I didn 't like about either the book or Schlosser himself. First, he was very liberal, and it showed throughout the book. He practically blamed both Bush administrations for every problem laid out in the book, then praised Clinton and his administration to try and stem the tide of the fast food giants. Then there was Schlosser himself. During his speaking engagement at the college, the first thing he said was that he wasn 't going to try to tell anyone not to eat fast food or go to McDonalds 's or Taco Bell or any other fast food restaurant. He then spent an hour trying to do just that. He said that people spend more time looking into buying a house than deciding what goes into our bodies. My first reaction was "Of course we do! A house costs tens of thousands of dollars, and a burger costs 99 cents." I know what he meant by it, saying that the burger will be with us for the rest of our lives and will affect our health in both the short and long run, but it 's not seen that way. If we have high cholesterol, we cal take a pill. High

American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous

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.

Fast food industry not only causes illness for people but also create problems to American agriculture since “The fast food chains now stand atop a huge food-industrial complex that has gained control of American agriculture.” (Schlosser). The fast foods companies need to purchase a vast of the agriculture products such as potatoes or cattle, and so they create corporate farms to provide products to their demands. Famer and cattle ranchers are being replaced by giant agribusiness companies which take over their lands. The independent famers are vanishing, and the gap between a small amount of wealthy elites and the large numbers of the working poor is getting bigger. When the fast foods companies control a vast of agriculture products, they also control prices of those products, which has driven down the prices and benefits that are offered to American farmers. According to Eric Scholosser, Nation Magazine Award winner, “In 1980, about thirty-seven cents of every consumer dollar spent on food went to the farmer. Today, only twenty-three cents goes to the farmer -

American food culture is not like other countries in the world; the diversity in foods and ethnicity creates its uniqueness. However, Americans mindset of “what should we have for dinner” and the poor decision making about food choices created the “omnivore’s dilemma” or what Pollan, in The Omnivore’s Dilemma calls the American national eating disorder. Pollan explored more about the food that Americans consume in “an investigation of food called the industrial food chain”(Pollan, Omnivore 110). While studying the products in supermarkets, Pollan realized that supermarkets offer a large variety of foods that contain corn, an unhealthy component, in most of its products. While Pollan is compelling claiming that American’s healthy food

In Lisa Miller’s essay “Divided We eat,” she describes her usual morning breakfast that consists of fancy foods and claims that she is a food snob. She then goes into detail about what her neighbor's routine is like, and what Alexandra Ferguson’s morning routine is like. Food is typically a big issue for these families and the parents will usually spend hours thinking about how they will feed their families. Miller and Ferguson later discuss that some children don’t get enough eat, and some of these children are within five miles of them. Miller then tells us that seventeen percent of Americans are food insecure. The income gap has increased and now more Americans are becoming obese because of this.

Michael Pollan in his book titled ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ takes a critical look at the food culture in the Unites States. According to him, the question that seems to bother most Americans is simply ‘What should we have for dinner today?’ To Pollan, Americans face this dilemma because they do not have a proper tradition surrounding food. ‘The lack of a steadying culture of food leaves us especially vulnerable to the blandishments of the food scientist and the marketer for whom the omnivore’s dilemma is not so much a dilemma as an opportunity; (Pollan). He cites the example of the Atkins diet and how an entire nation changed its eating habits almost overnight. A nation that had deep rooted food culture values would

Overall, the book has more strengths than it does weaknesses. Given the popularity of fast food by Americans and people across the world, this was information that needed to be spread to consumers everywhere. Schlosser does an incredible job of presenting the fast food industry from the grass roots up. But all of the problems that Schlosser identifies essentially bring up more questions than he can possibly answer in his book. The book proposes solutions to the evils of the industry but he doesn't really elaborate on the issues to make them understandable.

Schlosser also provides the facts of Salmonella appearing in the cooking of the infamous greasy meals, “A tiny uncooked particle of hamburger meat can contain enough of this pathogen to kill you.”(201). Schlosser’s verification of insecurity in the daily meals American’s consume can tug of the heart strings of the readers. Fast food and its eye opening facts is a reminder to the audience that not only are they hurting themselves, but that the effects are also affecting the family members and the ones who care most about the individual. What’s in the meat is not only a major concern, but also a major safety issue.

He wants to show a personal account of the difficulties that everyday people endure trying to accommodate different aspects of a fast food meal possible to the consumer. By stressing this, Schlosser also shows the need for the sanitation of fast food to be dealt seriously. He directs these ideas towards the less informed of American society. Schlosser wants to reach out to those that wish to become more informed of the fast food aspect of America, and to Americans, fast food has become a normal aspect of life. Even Professer Pothukuchi, of Wayne State University agrees that “fast food is destroying us: individuals, communities, work and family life, and indeed, our very connections with the world” (Pothukuchi 1). This book is intending the audience to steer away from what seems harmless, because fast food seems innocuous, when in reality is the opposite.

Summary: Because of food borne pathogens, 5,000 people die yearly and some 76 million are ill. Meat contamination has changed the nations confidence in the food safety system and questioned if the government should scale up regulations. Consumers advocates says the government need to increase inspections of both domestics and imported products and sanction facilities that repeatedly fails. But officials say increased regulations may put plants out of business without increasing food supply. A last minute hitch, however has left fate of that bipartisan legislation uncertain, despite support form unusual alliance of industry and consumer advocates. Scientists can now genetically modify fruits and vegetables as well as livestock and other food