Analysis Of Fast Food Pollan

In this book, Pollan focuses a lot on the culture that surrounds the eating habits of today’s society in America. He talks about how we come from a culture that was primarily dependent on the hunting and gathering of our food. Pollan explains that through the years, Americans have turned away from providing for themselves in exchange for quicker and more convenient meals. I believe that America has evolved into a fast paced way of living. This has inhibited today’s society from having optimal time to prepare and even sit down to enjoy their meals. These cultural changes have led to a higher consumption rate of processed and fast foods. Almost anywhere you go, you can find a find a fast food restaurant or chain. With all of these arising opportunities, today’s culture has created a very unhealthy nation filled with sickness and disease. Pollan states that three out of every five Americans are overweight and one out of every five is obese. When compared to American culture before processed and fast food were ever an option, issues and diseases related to weight were almost non-existent. The people that lived before our modernized culture had to expend a greater amount of energy on hunting and tracking their prey, sometimes even ending up empty handed. However, when compared to today’s culture a surplus of food is available to people in exchange for much smaller energy expenditures.

One night as Pollan sits down at a restaurant and is about to dig into a nice steak dinner, he gets to thinking about what the actual cost of the meal says about him. Steaks and more elegant and exotic game are a good representation of where one stands in the social class. Pollan talks about how the price of meat has continuously gone up throughout the ...

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...ised plays significant part in the end result of the quality of the product.

I think Pollan would endorse the idea of a regulation stating that cattle can only be fed a grass-based diet as opposed to a corn-based one. In his book, he explains the differences in the cattle raised on both of the diets. The cattle that are fed corn-based diets become very sick because their stomachs are not meant to consume and break down so much corn. They then live the remainder of their lives on antibiotics, just to keep them surviving long enough to make it to the slaughterhouses. Whereas cattle that are raised on a grass-based diet do not develop the need for excess antibiotics and attention like the corn-fed cattle do. Pollan made it clear that he preferred the grass-fed diet much greater than the corn-fed diet, which is why I believe he would support this change in public policy.