In 2008, Michael Pollan published his book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. In his book Pollan, a food critic and journalist, discusses the effect that growth of the food industry and the birth of “Nutritionism” have on the world’s population today. The effect Pollan refers to is called the “Western Diet” and which he believes, is the cause of “Western Diseases.” The Western Diet is no haute cuisine but instead consists of food easily procured and conveniently eaten everywhere, anywhere, anytime. Such foods as ham, hamburgers and hotdogs – all processed food from the food industry – constitutes some of the Western Diet. Western diseases include: obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and heart disease. The effect he describes is prevalent in places of the Western Hemisphere and areas adopting the Western lifestyle – buying and eating store food. As a resident of America and having relatives who have type 2 diabetes, I am alarmed at the relationship between the Western diet and type 2 diabetes. Throughout his book, Pollan argues the need for the general public to return to buying organic food as close as possible to its origin – i.e., the farmer – and be aware of the harmful consequences of eating products from the food industry; Pollan convinces the reader of this argument through refutation, organization and questions.
Supporting Pollan’s claim that people should return to eating organic food, Pollan uses one main refutation – the overdependence of scientists, whose findings are reinforced by the government and journalists. The refutation starts with Pollan’s reference to Liebig’s discovery of the macronutrients in soil. Liebig’s discovery was the initial step to Nutritionism as he made the bold claim “that all that plants need to live and grow are these three chemicals… [which also applies] with [a] person” (20). With this claim, the movement for finding the “X nutrient” and making the ideal processed food has been set – which led to the oversimplification of processed food and the rise of the medical bill per person today. Each discovery of a nutrient and its effects on a person’s health has led to a new product that pales in comparison to its organic equivalent. From this line of thinking, Pollan elaborates the organic equivalent’s superiority to its processed equivalent due to possessing nutrients unknown to Nutrition scientists and “food synergy” (111). By eating food with very little nutrition, people are insufficiently nourished and require more medical attention than ever before. Before establishing the refutation though, Pollan considers organization for the sake of his argument’s clarity and coherency.
Pollan’s book has three sections: The Age of Nutritionism, Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization, and Getting Over Nutritionism. In the first section, Pollan defined the components of his argument – namely Nutritionism and food. Nutritionism is a term coined by Gyorgy Scrinis that refers to the study of nutrients, the broken down parts of food (27). With this definition, Pollan makes the foundation for his argument. Pollan redefines food and portrays how people – even with all the technology accessible to them today – scarcely know what makes them live with an overwhelming influx of information in the Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization section. The large influx of information refers to multiple hypotheses of what would be the master nutrient such as the “lipid hypothesis” and the “carbohydrate hypothesis,” which both suggested conflicting concepts (23). Pollan then ends the book with suggestions on how to apply the points reached in the beginning sections such as the suggestion of “[eating] mostly plants, especially leaves” (162). Through organization, Pollan forms his argument by providing a specific connotation and denotation of common words like nutrition and food, to exposing the reader to an immense research about food. However, Pollan avoids leaving his readers in confusion by using questions.
By asking the reader, Pollan challenges any response the reader has to offer and to ask the reader to think as an individual and not follow blindly what he is told. Pollan also uses his questions to direct the argument flow. For example, Pollan’s initial question to the reader is “why?” in reference to “[avoiding] products that make health claims” (2). A common answer would be the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), government or the scientists said the food was beneficial for a person’s health as stated on the health claims. Pollan offers a different answer; food with such claims is not authentic food, which Pollan uses as a thread to the next topic. When stating the statistics of vegetable oils in a person’s diet, Pollan uses this technique by asking the question “why corn and oil?” to explain the logic running the food industry (117). With questions directing the content flow and asking for the reader’s attention, Pollan’s argument is clear to the reader – that people return to eating organic food.
Today, the number of people suffering from Western diseases is increasing as people convert to the Western Diet. With insuring diseases, the price people pay for medical attention has also risen. The increase in people’s unhealthiness is the consequence of food oversimplification. Pollan makes the refutation that the goals the food industry and nutrition scientists are trying to accomplish are counterproductive with each food product developed leading to the weakening of a person’s health. Food products made by the food industry are oversimplified in comparison to organic equivalents because food products are based on the current knowledge nutrition scientists have on how food fuels people. With its limited knowledge, the food industry produced food that lack the unknown components organic equivalents are known to have – a point Pollan makes ironically by using an accumulation of nutrition research. By defining common terms and exposing the reader to an immense influx of research about nutrition, Pollan convinces the reader that people should eat food produced as closely as possible to nature, citing the ill consequences of eating processed food, which really is not food but rather food imitations. However regardless of how convincing Pollan makes his argument to be, he implies that it is up to the reader whether or not to heed his advice.
Work Cited:
Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. 2006: Large Print Distribution, 2009. Print.
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