This essay compares Michael Moss’ “Junk Food” to Virginia Heffernan’s “What If You Just Hate Making Dinner”. Both of these authors write about food, and they specifically discuss the topic of junk food. The key difference between these articles is that Heffernan looks at the topic from the point of view of a consumer, a busy mother seeking a convenience; and Moss focuses more on the food and beverage industry and its impact on the consumers. Many industry professionals, doctors and scientists alike are concerned about spreading obesity epidemic. The similarities between “Junk Food” and “What If You Just Hate Making Dinner” are pronounced, and they deserve thorough investigation.
The first article, “Junk Food” discusses the struggle of the food and beverage
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The second article, “What If You Just Hate Making Dinner” represents a point of view of a busy mom that is feeling guilty about preferring to eat fast food rather than to cook a full meal. She describes the pressures on the women in society to come up with healthy, macronutrient rich, and wholesome meals for themselves and their families every day, as these messages are seen everywhere – such as cookbooks or TV shows.
Moss argues that “people bought what they liked, and they liked what tasted good” (para. 11). Despite the health concerns, they still preferred junk food, and the industry was simply meeting their needs. Moss further describes how the meals are being prepared, re-engineered to the smallest details, such as colour, texture, or mouth feel to create the perfect “bliss point” to appeal to the customers. Industry
In the essay, “Don’t Blame the Eater”, David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine, discusses the recent lawsuits against fast-food chains. He does not deny that there should be a sense of personal responsibility among the public, but has sympathy for the kid consumers because he used to be one. Zinczenko argues that due to the lack of nutritional facts and health warnings, it’s not so ridiculous to blame the fast-food industry for obesity problems.
Whether or not a person wants a burger and french-fries’ or a salad from the salad bar, the decision should be up to him/her. Two articles share views on food, “What You Eat Is Your Business” by Radley Balko and “Junking Junk Food” by Judith Warner. These two authors wrote articles about how they felt about food and how it’s related to obesity. However, Radley Balko would not approve of Judith Warner’s views on food for the reason that the two authors have different viewpoints on the aspect of the government helping people to make better food choices. Warner and Balko also has different views on the ideas which are that eating is a psychological matter; and eating healthy should be a personal matter.
David Zinczenko's article "Don't Blame the Eater" discuses with regard to a series of health-related topics involving food that most people and, particularly, young individuals eat today. The article is meant to raise public awareness concerning the risks associated with consuming particular foods. These respective risks are generally ignored because companies selling the products refrain from emphasizing the exact effects that consuming their food can have on someone's health. The reality is that cheap foods are an appealing alternative for young people who are more concerned about the quantity than the quality of the foods they eat.
David H. Freedman, a consulting editor for John Hopkins and author of several books, writes in “How Junk food can End Obesity” about the dangers of ruling out Fast Food as a way to decrease obesity in society. He argues that using nutrients to gauge the healthiness of a food is an adequate way to increase health in society, and that most “healthy” foods contain a lot of unhealthy ingredients that do not promote health. He also advocates small changes of about 50-100 calories in meals to encourage people to stay on their diets and promote long-term weight loss. He also points out the severe monetary difference between health foods and fast food. He ultimately wants to promote using the forum of food in society to decrease obesity in society, rather than making the large leap from junk food to whole, natural foods.
“They (Food Production Corporations) may have salt, sugar, and fat on their side, but we, ultimately, have the power to make choices. After all, we decide what to buy. We decide how much to eat.” (Moss 346). In today’s society, junk food needs no introduction as everyone enjoys the taste of junk food because it is fast, tasty, and affordable but not everyone knows what all goes into their food. Over the years the food industries have drastically changed how food is produced and manufactured. Moss reflects upon the motivations and practices by the food industries which have transformed the American food supply by the use of the three key ingredients, salt, sugar, and fat. Through Michael Moss’s use of rhetorical appeals in his book Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, he discusses the extraordinary science behind what is considered tasty food, how multinational food companies use the key ingredients, salt sugar, and fat to increase sales and how other literary elements can help create trust between the author and audience thus increasing the effect of his arguments.
Regardless the person, everyone still orders from restaurants, or they microwave a frozen dinner meal once in awhile. In contemporary society, it 's much more efficient to order take out rather than to cook and prepare your own food due to the lack of time. Sadly people even forget the taste of fresh, home cooked meals. Nowadays people don’t know what it’s like to sit down and enjoy a nice hearty home cooked meal, instead they’re always on the run grabbing a quick bite here and there. Unfortunately with such busy lives people don’t have the opportunity to watch cooking shows, go to cooking class, or even cook for their children. People just want to come home and relax they don’t want to have to worry about cooking and all the preparation that comes with it, they would much rather order take out and avoid all the hassle of cooking. In Berry Wendell’s Essay “The Pleasures of Eating”, we are given insight on how very little common people know about where their food comes from and what it goes through. “When a Crop Becomes King” by Michael Pollan reveals how corn, a single crop could be involved in such a wide array of industry and be used in almost everything. David Barboza’s article “If You Pitch It, They Will Eat”, focuses on how in modern society advertising is everywhere and it is taking a big role in everyday life. Through the work of Berry, Pollan, and Barboza we are shown that ignorance is a defining human trait.
In his article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity,” first published in 2013, David Freedman interprets how junk food can end obesity. Some people talk about junk food as one of the worst possible substances to put inside the human body. The number of calories, carbohydrates, and sodium in junk food products is massive, but “health food” can be just as bad. In David H. Freedman’s article, “How Junk Food Can End Obesity,” he explains the many pros and cons to both junk food and health food. Throughout the article, there are many uses of repetition, contrast, anomalies, and literary devices that all work together to correlate Freedman's point. Even though Freedman states that junk food could not end obesity, it is evident that Freedman believes
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
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.
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.
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
Is Greed actually not of a financial use rather than a emotional use. If so would employees who work at fast-food establishments or even major corporate heads of these billion dollar fast-food chains allow their own children to indulge themselves in them, knowingly aware of the vast risks they could embark on later in life due to their unhealthy choices? David Zinczenko brings up valid points on how fast-food is harmful to one’s body in “Don’t Blame the Eater,”. Zinczenko is able to effectively argue against the manipulation of the food industry by showing the reader that the consumer is the victim while the food industry is the one to blame. His use of questioning, personal appeals, imagery, direct tone and colorful diction results in a compelling case that supports his accusations of manipulation by the fast food industry.
In “Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” by Michael Moss is about the rising numbers of obesity in both adults and children throughout the United States. On the Evening of April 8, 1999, some of the biggest food industries CEO’s ad company presidents come together for a rare, private meeting. Discussing the emerging obesity epidemic and how they should deal with it. Big time companies food is lacking the nutrients that a person needs and is more concentrated on how to make it more desired. Keeping the customers coming for more. While the industries are gaining a profit, the customers are gaining a big belly.
In his article “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko argues that today’s fast food chains fill the nutritional void in children’s lives left by their overtaxed working parents. With many parents working long hours and unable to supervise what their children eat, Zinczenko claims, children today regularly turn to low-cost, calorie-laden foods that the fast food chains are too eager to supply. When Zinczenko himself was a young boy, for example, and his single mother was away at work, he ate at Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and other chains on a regular basis, and ended up overweight. Zinzenko’s hope is that with the new spate of lawsuits against the food industry, other children with working
In the Introduction to “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, Mary Maxfield argues that food and the way we consume it is not something that should define the obesity epidemic in America. A controversial issue discussed has been whether we should have theories or ideas where diet works best to increase weight loss or whether we should have any diets to begin with. On one hand, Maxfield argues against the Health Professor Michael Pollan, who proposes a diet idea to reduce the problem of unhealthy eating in America. While also reprimanding scientists and health doctors who suggests their own different diets. On the other hand, she introduces that food is just food and does not need to be differentiated since one may seem