They Say I Say Summary

692 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of healthy food over junk food

Supermarkets and Junk Food Influencing People’s Food Choices In They Say/I Say, Chapter Eighteen is talking all about food, and the long term argument that has been going on forever: What should we eat? There are many good articles in the chapter written by many reliable authors, but there are two of the articles that really stood out. The first one “The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate” by Marion Nestle, and the second is “How Junk Food Can End Obesity” by David H. Freedman. Both of these authors talk about the food industry, one talks about how the supermarket effects the choices people make in their diets, and the other talks about how junk food and the fast food industries might just be the way to go to help Americans become healthier. Marion …show more content…

He tells an experience he had when he went to a healthy food place on a trip once, he got a smoothie that was good, but had a lot of calories and cost a lot more than what was reasonable. David then brings up his second try with eating healthy foods and specific healthy places. He tried a different flavor, which he could barely handle to consume, and the price was barely lower than the first experience with a longer producing time period. Finally, he finds the perfect smoothie, low in calories as well in price, thanks to McDonalds. After telling his readers about these experiences he brings up Pollan, another author in They Say/I Say, who is very against processed foods, who expresses that organic and whole foods is the way Americans should eat to become healthier. He states “The fact is, there is simply no clear, credible evidence that any aspect of food processing or storage makes a food uniquely unhealthy” (518). This leads into his last main point, about how changing diets should not be the huge change of completely eliminating fast food and going strictly organic/whole foods, but making small, unnoticeable changes in the processed food industries, fast

Show More
Related

  • Problems with Obesity in America

    603 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Bad Food” – What’s the Best Food? Tax it, and Subsidize Vegetables”, Mark Bittman suggests that the people of America should stop eating unhealthy foods so often. In the article, Bittman tells his audience that people with “heart disease, diabetes and cancer are all in large part caused by the standard American Diet” (page 35). He also states that eating healthy can result in a better health care system, saving millions of lives. The big issue is Americans eating unhealthy every day, but proposing a plan to help stop it from happening.

    Read More

  • Summary Of How Junk Food Can End Obesity

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    While shopping at a local Trader Joe’s, Freedman spots a bag of peas, which have been breaded, deep-fried and then sprinkled with salt. Upon seeing this snack, he is in shock to know that this same store, which is known for their wholesome food, would sell such a thing. With a tone of exasperation, he admits that, “I can’t recall ever seeing anything at any fast-food restaurant that represents as big an obesogenic crime against the vegetable kingdom.” It was such an unexpected situation for him to come across this small snack that represented the opposite of what the wholesome-food movement is for. To settle his own confusion, he clarifies that, “…many of the foods served up and even glorified by the wholesome-food movement are themselves chock full of fat and problem carbs.” This further proves that just because a certain food is promoted by a health fad, it does not validate that it is genuinely better than fast-food itself. A simple cheeseburger and fries from any fast-food restaurant would more than likely contain less calories than a fancy salad from the next hole-in-the-wall cafe. Not only that, but the burger and fries will be tastier and much cheaper

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Mark Bittman's Article: Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    He expresses the different myths about fast food, like how it is supposedly cheaper than real food when measured by the calories, the mentality of people that if it isn’t fast food, it has to be costly organic food, and that there just isn’t enough time to cook at home. These myths, followed by genuine factors such as addictions and a cultural impact, help Bittman prove his argument’s validity to his audience. I have to say that Bittman proved his argument’s effectiveness, for he clearly stated his thesis and provided various reliable sources that aided in proving his view’s legitimacy. He states that the alternatives to fast food don’t have to be grass-fed beef and organic veggies, but instead pretty much anything that’s healthier than junk.

    Read More

  • How Junk Food Can End Obesity By David Freeman Summary

    712 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this essay “How Junk Food Can End Obesity,” published in 2013 issue of The Atlantic Daily, David Freedman explains how junk food is a better source of the organic food. Stressing the price and how many calories to natural/healthy smoothies and fast food /junk food. While most people believe junk food contributes to obesity, Freedman advocates eating junk food but making smart choices.

    Read More

  • A Summary Of Michael Pollan And Michael Moss

    1204 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Escape from the Western Diet, Pollan discusses how Americans have become obese due to their diet of mainly processed foods. He makes the case that for Americans to once again become healthy, we must return to eating “whole foods”. Pollan brings up the fact that Americans don’t spend as much time nor as much money on

    Read More

  • Analysis Of David Zinczenko's Whose Fault Is Obesity

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    He begins by saying that while it may seem easy to avoid fast food and eat relatively balanced meals, it is easier to fall victim to than you may assume, based on life circumstances. His mother, for example, had custody of him after his parent’s divorce and was too busy working to provide for him to have time to shop for and prepare healthy meals. “Advertisements don 't carry warning labels the way tobacco ads do. Prepared foods aren 't covered under Food and Drug Administration labeling laws. Some fast-food purveyors will provide calorie information on request, but even that can be hard to understand.” is an example Zinczenko gives that even though consumers often times know fast food is bad for your body, but not to the full magnitude. These companies find loopholes to justify projecting calorie/content information that is either insufficient or perplexing enough that you would be forced to go to great lengths to uncover exactly how many calories are actually in your meal. Another one of his main points is the lack of alternative options. With a McDonalds on every corner and a busy schedule, it is almost inevitable to choose a drive thru burger rather than going into a grocery store to buy something you then later have to go through the trouble of preparing, especially for

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Michael Pollan's Escape From The Western Diet

    1159 Words  | 3 Pages

    He claims that a better diet requires spending more time and resources on food, just like the people of the past did. Pollan attributes their surpassing health to this practice, but in his article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”, David Freedman paints a different story. Freedman describes how examinations of ancient non-Western remains revealed “hardened arteries, suggesting that pre-industrial diets…may not have been the epitome of healthy eating” (514). This discovery seriously undermines Pollan’s assumption that we should follow the lead of our ancestors because even though they spent a greater amount of resources on food and ate absolutely no processed foods, they still suffered from some of the same diseases which Pollan claims his eating habits will curb. As an opponent of processed foods, or “foodlike products” (Pollan 426), Pollan advocates eating whole foods. As many people have a similar opinion, he is not alone in this, but he is misinformed. Freedman reveals that after examining the nutrition labels on various unprocessed, whole foods, he found that many contained more fat, sugar, and sodium than processed foods (512). If unprocessed foods underwent the same scrutiny as processed foods, perhaps this common misconception could be prevented. The basic premise of Pollan’s essay is that a better diet will lead to better health. While we could all benefit from a better diet, “findings linking food type and health are considered highly unreliable (Freedman 518). Freedman discusses the multitude of nondietary factors such as air quality and exercise that render such studies untrustworthy. Pollan might be a well-respected author of nutrition books, but this does not mean that his theories are free of

    Read More

  • How Junk Food Can End Obesity?

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michael Pollan and David Freedman are two reputable authors who have written about different types of food and why they are healthy or why they are damaging to our health. Michael Pollan wrote “Escape from the Western Diet” and David Freedman wrote “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”. Imagine Pollan’s idea of a perfect world. Everything is organic. McDonald’s is serving spinach smoothies and Walmart is supplying consumers with raw milk. The vast majority of food in this world consists of plants grown locally, because almost everyone is a farmer in order to keep up with supply and demand. How much does all this cost? What happened to all the food that is loved just because it tastes good?

    Read More

  • Analysis Of How Junk Food Can End Obesity

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    Published In his article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”, David Freedman begins by talking about how misinformed people are about wholefood restaurants and stores. These stores are run by so-called health food experts. Freedman makes himself distinguishable himself from the position of Michael Pollan and his adherents. His adherents are known as Pollanites. They are the people who believe that processed food is the reason we have health and obesity issues.

    Read More

  • Documentary: Hungry For Change

    1698 Words  | 4 Pages

    As obesity and medical problems due to diet become a larger issue within society, it is imperative to educate humans on the importance of maintaining a healthy diet. This is exactly what Hungry for Change does. One of the key points made in the documentary is that humans no longer eat a natural diet like their ancestors did; when humans first began to inhabit the Earth they lived off a diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats. During these periods famine and disease was rampant, so humans adapted to store nutrition more productively. Now that humans live in a more developed society, they have a (practically) unlimited supply of food. However, much of this food is processed and manipulated to have a better flavour and a longer shelf life, and though this sounds like a positive situation, it has become a huge problem. According to best-selling women’s health author Dr. Christine Northrup, “We’ve lived on Earth for a millennium where there was a food shortage. You’re programmed to put on fat whenever there is food available. Now there’s a lot of food available, but it’s the wrong kind.” (Northrup, as cited in Colquhoun et al., 2012). This is a logical and widely accepted theory as to why humans continue to overindulge on foods despi...

    Read More

  • They Say I Say Chapter 2 Summary

    297 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Chapter 2 of They Say/ I Say, Graff et.al. discusses the craft and techniques of summaries, well technically the art of it. A summary explains the critical information presented in a writer’s own words from another source in a reduced length. Summaries can still make it possible for people to gain knowledge even if they are busy. While writing a summary, the writer should only focus on the text and information from the other source. Writers can achieve this by playing the “believing game” in which the writer suspends their own beliefs and focuses only on the summary, to not cause confusion for the reader. If the writers refuse to not focus on the viewpoint of the author then there will be two different viewpoints in the summary that will

    Read More

  • Escape From The Western Diet

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Western Diet is basically processed food, which is foods that are full with hormones, refined grains, sweet food, and food that is high in saturated fats. This food method that America is following is the reason for the increased rate of obesity in the country and many chronic diseases, due to why many Americans are suffering from. Pollan wants Americans to take control and set goals for themselves and their health. As he states, “A hallmark of the Western diet is food that is fast, cheap, and easy.”(424) This is the reason why people tend to buy it this food. Pollan is right about how the Western diet is affecting the people’s health negatively because of recent studies have shown that most of the food that people consume are processed foods, which gone through a process letting most of its nutritional values. Also, the food is full of unhealthy nutrients that are added to it during the process. An individual cannot have assurance of what he/she is consuming from a fast food place or a cheap prepared meal from grocery store. Western diet needs to be taken away from American’s life. He states “Not Too Much”(pp.426) will be the focus from the foods themselves to the question of how to eat, the manners, mores, and the habits that go with creating a healthy diet, and pleasing culture of eating. This way it will allow Americans to live their life healthier and

    Read More

  • Escape From The Western Diet Essay

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    When we think of our national health we wonder why Americans end up obese, heart disease filled, and diabetic. Michael Pollan’s “ Escape from the Western Diet” suggest that everything we eat has been processed some food to the point where most of could not tell what went into what we ate. Pollan thinks that if America thought more about our “Western diets” of constantly modified foods and begin to shift away from it to a more home grown of mostly plant based diet it could create a more pleasing eating culture. He calls for us to “Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants.” However, Mary Maxfield’s “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, argues differently she has the point of view that people simply eat in the wrong amounts. She recommends for others to “Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” The skewed perception of eating will cause you all kinds of health issues, while not eating at all and going skinny will mean that you will remain healthy rather than be anorexic. Then, as Maxfield points out, “We hear go out and Cram your face with Twinkies!”(Maxfield 446) when all that was said was eating as much as you need.

    Read More

  • Summary

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    In "thinking outside the idiot box", Dana Stevens responds to Steven Johnson's New York Times article in which Johnson believes that watching television makes you smarter. Indeed, Steven Johnson claimed that television shows have become more and more complex over the years in order to follow the viewers need for an interesting plot instead of an easy, linear story. However, Dana Stevens is opposed to this viewpoint. Stevens is not against television, he does not think it makes you smarter nor that it is poisenous for the brain, he simply states that the viewer should watch television intelligently. That is to say that, viewers should know how much television they should watch and what to watch as well.

    Read More

  • Where Is It Written Summary

    2077 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Where is it Written” by Adam Schwartz, is a story about love and heartache with Sandra trying to get custody of her son, Sam. Sam first was living with her mother with some issues like, arguing and disrespect. Then Sandra starts trying to be nice to Sam so he can stay with her. Finally, Sam ends up with his father. Coming of age is an important theme, in which it shows that an individual is coming to adulthood and takes responsibility and a deeper understanding of one's consequences. Sam came of age because he realizes his mother just really wants her son in her life. He also realized that you can’t change someone’s opinion when in their heart of hearts they know they are right.

    Read More

More about They Say I Say Summary

Open Document