Because of Food Science, additives in whole foods like, sugar, salt and preservatives are causing a demand for whole foods with additives than whole foods without additives in the average Americans diet and by manufacturers, while causing health problems at the same time. Since scientist started putting micronutrients(cholesterol, fiber, saturated fat, ect.) in whole foods in 1950 's, they found ways to help store, ship and make more supplies of fake foods, this caused manufacturers to gain interest in food science and to encourage them to supply more fake foods in markets than whole foods. Because manufacturers gained interest in food science, more food markets are now containing whole foods with additives than whole foods without additives, …show more content…
For scientist to come up with food science and figured out the micronutrients of foods is impressive but very concerning when a reporter no longer eats processed foods after doing a report on them. Most consumers just want to eat what taste good to them and not the healthy factor of eating, today 's science shows that sugar is more addicting than most drug and cigarettes. This could be yet another example of how food science has changed what we put in our refrigerators and what we believe is healthy foods. Pollan states," Yet as a general rule it 's a whole lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of cereal than on a raw potato or a carrot, with perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as a stroke victims, while a few aisles over in Cereal the Coco Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming their newfound "whole grain goodness" to the rafters. Watch out for those health claims." Meaning that what we think is healthy because of food science saying it has nutrition factors in it could be doing more harm than
Videos slide The problem is, many brands are doing this – most companies are relying on these misleading assumptions to fool consumers and increase the revenue and brand recognition of their products, and making it look enticing to buy due to its possible health benefits However, the government does have a system to help stop this from happening, the health star rating system. The system, introduced two years ago, has a score out of 5 for packaged and processed goods (5 being the highest), considered ‘a quick way to compare the nutritional value of processed and packaged food’ and encouraging consumers to make healthier choices. Supporters of the health star system hoped it would encourage companies to make their food healthier, and this worked for some brands. Nutri-grain, for example, found that it had only 2 stars, primarily because a full third of it was sugar.
Escape from the Western Diet describes Pollan’s primary occupation as an author of food and eating books, not a food scientist, however, Pollan bases his entire article off of his opinion of how Americans should eat (Pollan, 420). Pollan 's rules, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” might serve as a fine setup for a fad diet, but these rules don’t necessarily provide a reasonable solution for America’s obesity problem. The rules don’t provide a solution because they are too vague; you can’t solve a nationwide issue using a system that fails to acknowledge any other factors besides what Americans should supposedly eat. Logical fallacies pop up throughout Escape from the Western Diet and stunt its credibility, such examples being the False Dichotomy, Begging the Question, and the Hasty Generalization. In Pollan’s quote, “people eating a Western diet are prone to a complex of chronic diseases that seldom strike people eating more traditional diets” (Pollan, 421), the Hasty Generalization fallacy is apparent, as not every person who eats a Western diet is prone to chronic diseases. The quote, “the healthcare industry...stands to profit more handsomely from new drugs and procedures to treat chronic diseases than it does from a wholesale change in the way people eat” (Pollan, 422) is a prime example of the Begging the Question fallacy, as this
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
The western diet consists of foods high in sugar and fat, as well as a large consumption of red meats and refined grains. As a result, people who consume a western diet face problems with their weight and often have many diseases related to poor dieting. Pollan believes that the food industry and medical community take advantage of this. Pollan claims that the food industry will change their processed food and sell it back to the consumer rather than removing the process food all together. The medical community will treat people’s diseases instead of helping to prevent theses disease by educating people on how to make healthier life style choices. Mary Maxfield believes that these points made by Michael Pollan are hypocritical. She states that Michael Pollan is taking advantage of the consumer the same way he claims that the food industry and medical community are. Pollan would criticize the food industry and medical community but at the same time publish and sell his theories on how to eat
Compare your shopping experiences at retailers like Costco, Nordstrom, or Whole Foods with experiences you may have had at Walmart, Sears, or Kroger.
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?
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.
As a result, she concludes that science has nothing to do with Pollan believes that Americans rely on nutrition science, the study of individual nutrients like carbohydrates, fats, and antioxidants, to fix the Western diet because it is the best source that exists. However, scientists have developed conflicting theories that confuse people to conclude as to how the Western diet causes disease, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Pollan disagrees with any type theory and instead blames the food and health industries who take advantage of new theories but do not to fix the problem of the Western diet. In turn, not only does he suggest people spending more time and money on better food choices, but he also proposes many tips to eat better, as well as a rule that will allow Americans climb out of the Western diet: Eat food.
In recent studies, it was discovered that most of the foods that Americans consumed are foods which had gone through so many processes and thereby losing most of its nutritional values. Unhealthy nutrients are also been added to foods as additive during production to either preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance. An individual cannot simply trust what he or she is consuming at a fast food restaurant or even a cheap prepared meal at a grocery store. Processed food or western diet needs to be replaced and totally taken out of the American life and diet; this will help the Americans to live a healthier life, and spend less on medical bills.
The 2009 movie Food Inc. describes the major role that food production plays within many lives. This movie revealed that there is a very small variety of companies that consumers purchase their food from. These few companies actually control what is out on the shelves and what we put into our bodies. These companies have changed food production into a food production business. Many of these companies experiment with ways to create large quantities of food at low production costs to result in an enormous amount of profit for themselves. Some of the production cost cuts also result in less healthy food for the population. Instead of worrying about the health of the population, the companies are worried about what will make them the most money.
...nd the problem is the so-called “junk food.” Marion Nestle, a writer and nutrition health professor, states that "The relative price of fresh fruits and vegetables has gone up by 40 percent since 1980, while the relative price of processed foods has gone down by about 40 percent. We're spending $20 billion a year on agricultural subsidies for the wrong foods.”
America’s food source has altered drastically in the last century and so has the health of many. Americans used to thrive on natural foods for nutritional value, now Americans thrive on processed and manufactured food for just for convenience. Food companies have changed the very way we view nutrition. They have taken chemistry to a whole new level and added what they want it to what we now call food even if that harms our bodies in the long run. Food companies have also caused many hard working farmers to lose their jobs. These food companies have lost insight as to what is truly important in a food product and don’t care if that means taking someone else’s job.
Since 1916, the United States Department of Agriculture (the government agency responsible for all U.S. policy regarding agriculture, food, and farming) has revised their recommendations several times. Unfortunately, money talks and the USDA’s recommendations are based on outdated science and are influenced by people with business interest. Even so, its recommendations are considered almost “holy” by physicians, nutritionists, and dieters, but in reality, they are the root cause of the problem. A single visit to our local public school cafeteria and it will become clear that they do not have the best interests of the children at heart. What they are feeding our innocent children is preposterous. Doctors, the people we trust and expect to be “the experts”, do not know much about the subject of nutrition. A vast majority of medical schools in the U.S. require just 25-30 hours or less of nutrition training, and some do not require at all. So doctors must rely on the ...
Food has been a common source of necessity in our everyday lives as humans. It helps gives us nutrition and energy to live throughout our life. Over several decades, the development of making foods has evolved. They have changed from natural to processed foods in recent years. Nowadays natural ingredients are barely used in the making of foods like bread, cheese, or yogurt. The food industry today has replaced natural food making with inorganic ingredients. The cause of this switch is due to processed foods being easier, cheaper and faster to make. Artificial nutrition and processed foods have been proven to last longer in market shelves then natural foods. Also, due to artificial additives in processed foods they help satisfy consumers taste more than natural ingredients. The method of producing processed foods is common in today's food industry and helps make money faster and efficiently for companies. Examples of this can be found in all markets that distribute food. Even though processed foods may be easier and faster to make, they are nowhere near as healthy for consumers compared to natural foods. Natural foods are healthier, wholesome, and beneficial to the human body and planet then processed foods.
Food is “composed of synthetic chemical additives, such as colorings, preservatives, sugar substitutes and trans-fats” (Fitzgerald, 2006, p.72). Fitzgerald reported that by the “1970s most meats and dairy products that were factory farmed were laced with growth hormones, antibiotics and a range of pesticides” (p.72). Furthermore, food that is frozen, packaged and canned is considered processed food. A brief explanation of the chemical additives in processed food. 1.