The Pleasures Of Eating By Berry Wendell

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.

At some point of a kid’s life, they want to be picky about something. They want to have some control of their little world where adults are constantly telling them what to wear, what to do, and what to eat. Food, for instance, is an easy topic where kids will fight for some independence. Throwing, yelling, crying and even bribing were the essence of a battle at dinner tables. Because some parents would automatically give in to their children’s need, the kids often think they won the battle but technically they didn’t. In the story, “Picky Eater”, Julia Alvarez tells a story of her childhood experience of home meals where her and her sisters were also picky eaters, despite having healthy food served to them. Meals, she said, “at home were battlegrounds. Even if you won the dinner battle, refusing to clean your plate or drink your engrudo, you inevitably lost the war” (Alvarez 145). Battlegrounds at home can occur but it doesn’t have to end up being messy if the parents know how to handle the situation properly.

He probes them to learn the what, where, and how of dinner – knowing what is going into the body, knowing where that food came from, and knowing how that food was made. By first knowing what is being consumed, people can make better informed decisions about their purchases. Nutrition, or lack thereof, is a key component in the battle against obesity. Food giants are hoping to hide the often unnecessary filler present in their products by use of dodgy claims and socially engineered advertisements. In general, most consumers probably couldn’t say where their food came from. This usually boils down to the fact that shoppers typically don’t think about it. Breaking this reliance on mass-grown foods is the second part of Pollan’s proposition. The third and equally important element is how the food is produced. More specifically, Pollan is concerned whether or not the food has been produced in a sustainable manner. Preserving the biodiversity of food, maintaining fertile land for future generations, and ensuring consumers receive food that does not compromise health are all factors of sustainability. Without informed consumers, what, where, and how will continue to be unanswered questions. Whether it is for nutritional or ethical choices, a particular food’s history is something that needs to once again become common

Nowadays, many people start living a healthy lifestyle. People realize an importance of caring about what is in their food and benefits of home cooked meals over processed food. Home Cooking is not just healthier, but also it has tons of benefits. Simple examples are saving money, controlling body weight and avoiding food poisoning. “Homemade is the New Organic” written by Rachel Jones for the Atlantic (2015), discussed the new food trend-cooking at home. In her article, she explained how cooking is becoming popular recently. An earlier time, a family which has low-income had no choice but to use homemade food. Today, however, meaning of homemade food changes. People start to appreciate the goodness of cooking at home and intentionally choose the homemade. Moreover, she mentioned that social media has a huge effect on this change. Since we have all the necessary tools and food in our kitchen, only a bit of time needs to be devoted. Basically, she tried to inform a general public that home cooking has an essential value in our life. In my opinion, Rachel successfully achieves her intention with the help of following rhetorical strategies: logos, ethos and counterpoint.

One does not necessarily expect books about food also to be about bigger ideas like oppression, spirituality, and freedom, yet Pollan defies expectations. Pollan begins with an exploration of the food-production system from which the vast majority of American meals are derived. This industrial food chain is mainly based on corn, whether it is eaten directly, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose and ethanol. Pollan discusses how the humble corn plant came to dominate the American diet through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors. The role of petroleum in the cultivation and transportation the American food supply is also discussed. A fast-food meal is used to illustrate the end result of the

Wendell Berry’s “The Pleasures of Eating” is a strong-opinioned article on how and why people (in his view) take for granted the food they are served and nourished with everyday. The read itself is lengthy in the fact that the first three pages don’t mean that much; the numbered bullet points starting on page four outline what the author was trying to say throughout the whole piece. Berry is such a smooth writer with a strong vocabulary, that reader’s like myself could have trouble staying on topic with his side thoughts in just about every sentence. In dissecting his bullet points, I think this will serve as a good summary and personal reflection. The first point is about growing our own food to feel the reward and labor that many farmers

Many people have grown up around school lunches without knowing much about them. With these people trusting the schools to serve healthy lunches to students, not many people care to worry about what they are eating. Growing up ignorant about food is easy to do, but why settle for convenience if it harms the body? In Melanie Warner’s novel, Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food took over the American Meal, she goes over the history and science of many well-known food companies and the products these corporations sell to individuals. Warner explains how food science became popular to study and how progressive America’s food technology has come. Pandora’s Lunchbox is a remarkable read through its personal stories and demonstrations. Despite her fruitless comments about the science of food, Warner’s approach shows that her writing style and personal testimonies connect with the reader.

Berry begins the article by pointing out the consumer’s ignorance as they do not realize the connection they have with the agricultural cycle. Many believe that eating is an agriculture act, however, they do not associate themselves with this act because they do not have direct contact with the actual food production process. Berry explains that the reason why people think this way is because “they just buy what they want - or what they have been persuaded to want” without a second thought on the qualities and the states of the products (3). He appeals to the reader’s emotions as he describes the nature of the consumers because it demonstrates the reality of how little people nowadays care what they consume into their body. Berry further enforces his appeal on the audience’s emotions by claiming that “food is pretty much an abstract idea” to most of the urban shoppers (4). Shoppers understand that food is produced on farms, but have no knowledge on the locations of the farms, the type of farms, and the techniques that are involved in farming. This statement supports Berry’s claims on the consumer’s ignorance because it points out the important role that consumers actually play

In today’s society a huge issue is that we constantly hear about the food industry in America. We often hear in the news that obesity rates have increased, or that Americans have many diseases that contribute to being obese. “What You Eat is Your Business” by Radley Balko expresses that people are at fault for making such unhealthy food choices. Others argue that the food industry is to blame for being so unhealthy. According to David Zinczenko in “Don’t Blame the Eater” he blames the fast food industry as well as the consumer. Zinczenko asks “shouldn’t we know better than to eat two meals a day in fast food restaurant’s?” (392). So, who is to blame for American’s eating so much unhealthy food? Should it be the consumers’ burden or the fast food companies? On one hand, as consumers we continue to purchase foods that we know are making us overweight. On the other hand, fast food companies continue to offer high in calories foods.

Nowadays more and more people are unaware of where their food comes from. Mankind now lives in an age where technology is the main focus and the rural way of life is becoming a thing of the past. The ability to produce food is so efficient and effective that some people do not even realize how their food gets to their plate. But that was not the case in the 19th century. In 1837, a man named John Deere changed farming forever.

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

Within the essay Pleasures of Eating a Kentucky farmer and author, Wendell Berry, recalls several instances where after a lecture on the decline of American farming he’s asked questioned about how to take action. His answer is, “Eat responsibly” (1). He goes on the say, “Of course, I have tried to explain what I meant by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt that there was more to be said than I had been able to say” (1). Cooked suffers in a similar way, it fails to dedicate enough time to present a solution to the questions it asks; while also falling to ask all the questions necessary to form a comprehensive argument and give viewers the knowledge to make a positive change. Instead, they choose to use their time to babble off cherry picked statistics, without properly stating sources i.e, most Americans spend 27 minutes a day

Have you ever thought of food as an “agricultural act”? When we are hungry, we eat whatever we want. We do not strive to get the right type of nutrients in what we consume daily or enjoy eating healthy. Food that is available to use effortlessly is the food we go for instead of rediscovering the ‘pleasure’ of food. Wendell Berry contributes in many different ways in his article including emotional appeal and reality to prove to us the various questions that should be arising in our minds when purchasing foods.

In the Hunter/Gatherer section of Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan talks about what it takes to accomplish the task of developing a meal on his own; consequently, the people of today’s society are so used to the abundance of food that they have no idea what all is involved in establishing a full meal. Americans take this great abundance of food for granted, which causes an increased craving for more. This is where the world of advertisement has been the strongest. One of the easiest ways to reach people is through their food; therefore, major food industries try to lure people in at all costs just to buy their products. The Fast food industry is the

Whenever one goes shopping for groceries there are many different things people take into account. Some of the many considerations one must take when shopping is the price, the ingredients, and if it is going to be enough to last you or if it is going to be too much that the food you bought is going to go bad. As culture changes, so do our food shopping habits. For example, a few years back one would turn on the TV and would see McDonald in his big clown outfit promoting the "GREAT" hamburgers. Now those types of commercials are nowhere to be found. One can say that in today’s society we are experiencing a cultural change on food advertisement.