Wednesday, February 17, 2010

In Defense of Food Makes You Think


In his book, Michael Pollan, begins by showing us, as a society, that we have changed how we perceive food and have become obsessed with nutritionism. We have been conditioned to see the nutrients on the labels of our food instead of the food itself as a whole. As a result, we believe that our artificial food products are good for us because they have been filled with "nutrients" that we think we need in order to be healthy. So now we substitute natural and healthy food with this artificial food leading us to become overweight and lacking proper nurition. Pollan's solution to this is that we "get back to the real food."

I think that it is interesting that our attempts to become healthier are harming us more than helping us. If we want something that has more nurients or less fat, the producers can usually magically make it happen, regardless of what food it may be. Obviously, this is very unnatural, but we don't stop to think how unnatural this really is. So I can understand his argument about how we need to get back to "not eating anything our grandmother would not recognize."

I also think that it is intriguing that this nutrition fad is mainly affecting the western diet. It makes you wonder how other countries would be affected if they picked up the western diet all of a sudden and vice versa. I believe that our bad habits would be quite a harm to those not from the western world. This short article shows us that there is a rising issue with foreigners picking up our eating habits and experiencing increased risks of diseases that are diet -related.

Michael Pollan raises some good points in his book. His point in this section is that we should stop and think about what we are actually consuming. It may seem inconveniencing now but it will benefit us in the long run.



Image from: http://www.designmom.com/uploaded_images/InDefenseFood_cover_med-703147.jpg