Rhetorical Analysis On What We Eat

Fast food restaurants are on every street corner and they infest every city across the United States. Society relies on them for cheap, quick, and accessible food that is advertised as healthy and full of nutrients. However, the way fast food is portrayed and the ingredients that are used within the food is inconsistent. Modern day food industry is toxic, promotes unhealthy food and it plays a key role within the obesity rates in the country. Fast food is a multi billion dollar industry that was first seen during the 1920s.

In Michael Pollan’s essay “Escape from the Western Diet,” he directly to Americans about the western diet and why he believes they need to escape from it. The reason Americans should escape the western diet is to avoid the harmful effects associated with it such as “western diseases” (Pollan, 420). To support his view on the issue, Pollan describes factors of the western diet that dictate what Americans believe they should eat. These factors include scientists with their theories of nutritionist, the food industry supporting the theories by making products, and the health industry making medication to support those same theories. Overall, Pollan feels that in order to escape this diet, people need to get the idea of it out of their heads.

Americans have been overweight ever since the early 2000’s because of the food they consume. There are four different food chains in America that link to the food we eat. In the book “The Omnivore's Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. Which fits in the nonfiction genre. Pollan announces that the food we put in our mouth is from different food chains.

This appeals to our physiological needs because naturally, humans need to eat food and to hear from a professional that there are other influences outside of food that are giving cause to the obesity crisis gives Americans a slight sigh of relief when it comes to the degree of toxicity of our foods. Furthermore, that people eat a more wholesome diet versus those that do not, tend to be healthier than that live on fast and processed foods,there are also stark differences to recognize between these classes that should be taken into account as well such as the tendency to engage in exercise, air quality, and other health considerations such as smoking and

Every 5 years since 1980, a new edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has been published. The primary goal is to make recommendations about the components of a healthy and nutritionally adequate diet to help promote good health and prevent chronic disease for current and future generations. About half of all American adults have one or more preventable chronic diseases, and about two thirds of US adults are overweight or obese. These conditions have been highly prevalent for more than two decades. Poor dietary patterns, over consumption of calories, and physical inactivity directly contribute to these disorders.

In recent decade, the United States has seen supermarkets continuously get filled with packages labeled with things like “Low sodium” or “No Trans Fats.” Companies stick these labels on their food to match the current fads of what is good for you and what is not. In his essay Unhappy Meals, Michael Pollan advocates a return to natural and basic foods, and deplores nutritionism. Pollan argues that nutritionism does not actually tell people what is healthy or not, and that the only way to be sure you are eating healthy is to eat natural, fresh food.

In this non-fiction book by a journalism professor at UC Berkley, Michael Pollan asks the age old question…”What’s for dinner?” Michael Pollan believes that how we answer that question may well determine how we survive as a species. In his book he details how we as a country have been lead down the convenience path when choosing what we eat. Fast food chains and the American Supermarket have changed the way we eat as a nation and Michael Pollan is considered an expert in this subject. In this award winning book, he follows the four food chains: industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves and the impact these sources are having on the health of our country.

(424). These powerful words of insight from the author emphasize just how far the consumers of the western diet have distanced themselves from natural food their ancestors used to once indulge on. For example, going back sixty to seventy years ago families had to prepare their meals with more nutritious foods as they did not have nearly the same accessibility to the amount of processed and fast-foods that Americans do

In this book, Michael Polland highlights the main issues in today’s “Western Diet,” breaking down the factors contributing to our unhealthy food consumption. Nutritionism is an idea that we are constantly surrounded by, but how much of it do you really understand? How much of it is truth, and how much is simply manipulation? If you were to look back in time, you’d see the progression of the modern meal, straying further and further from actual food itself.

Michael Pollan’s Escape from the Western Diet connects well with what Mary Maxfield says in her article. Both Pollan and Maxfield talk about the ways that dieting is taking over American people’s healths and causing them to become even unhealthier. In Mary Maxfield’s argument she talks about how people believe everything that diet industries say, even though they know that the information they give you is false. This connects really well with what Michael Pollan talks about in his article, which is that people know that these theories that are used for the Western diet are not accurate, but yet they still decide to use the Western diet to help them become healthier.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” (Pollan). With these words, American author and food journalist, Michael Pollan, begins detailing his approach to making healthy food choices in the article “Unhappy meals” published in the New York Times. Pollan criticizes food science and the nutritionist approach to foods, scrutinizing the reductionist approach that nutritionists have to diet.

In both David Zinczenko’s “Don’t Blame The Eater” and “ Radley Balko’s “What You Eat is Your Business”, the argument of obesity in America is present and clear from opposing viewpoints. Both articles were written in the early 2000’s, when the popular political topic of the time was obesity and how it would be dealt by our nation in the future. While Zinczenko argues that unhealthy junk food is an unavoidable cultural factor, Balko presents the thought that the government should have no say in it’s citizens diet or eating habits. Zinczenko’s article was written with the rhetorical stratedgy of pathos in mind.

Quite frankly most American citizens are lazy. There is many factors that contribute to the unfortunate laziness of many American’s. Many of these factors have just come about within the last decade. For instance, one reason many American citizens tend to be lazy is because of the increase of popularity in video games and television. Another reason many American’s are couch potatoes is because they spend many hours working inside an office building.

Nutrition Topic: Nutrition Organization: Topically Specific Purpose: To inform my audience the importance of proper nutrition I. INTRODUCTION A. Attention getter: Did you know that more than two thirds of adults are considered to be overweight or obese in the United States? If obesity rates stay consistent, about 51% of the population by the year 2030 will be obese.

According to Centres of Disease Control and Prevention more than one-third (34.9% or 76.6 million) of U.S adults are obese. In this fast moving world, may it be people from the corporate world or even students no one really have the time to wait to get their food done. So the only way is that they buy themselves fast food. However, awareness is being created these days about the effects of fast food people are also starting to blame fast food for increasing rate of obesity.