Viewing In Defense of Food Critically

Journalist Michael Pollan enlightens his readers to realize that the industrialized society is redirecting more and more people to the Western diet, composed of artificial food substances, and preventing them from consuming proper food. He even argues that the consumption of the products of science in the Western diet is corrupted. We are having more meals in our cars and in front of our television sets than on our tables. Michael Pollan discusses the Western diet’s focus on extracting nutrition from whole food is the problem and that the Western diet is the cause of high rates of diabetes and obesity. However, Michael Pollan’s argument fails to recognize the differences in lifestyle and not just the differences in diet. In addition, his proposal on how people should eat seems unsuitable to many people of the present day society.

Its not just the Western diet that is problematic to many people’s health but the industrialized lifestyle. Pollan argues how the aboriginals were sent into the wild and their traditional diet had cure their obesity and Improved on the overall quality of their health. However, Pollan does not put a strong focus that the aboriginals had to chase after their food and the aboriginals had to starve when they failed to scavenger any food. If the aboriginals had vehicles and technology to chase after their food, undoubtedly the results would not have been the same. Even his argument that the Japanese and French are healthier due to their diet, does not provide the full picture of the different lifestyles. Unlike United States where people cannot go anywhere without their cars, both, Japan and France, discourage the usage and owning of cars. People from both countries have to walk to their destination or to nearest metro stations and remain standing for the entire duration of the ride. The increase in physical activity will likely increase the health standard of the population. Hence, by only looking at one aspect of these societies, we already get a general idea how different lifestyles can make an impact on the amount of energy used daily. We cannot really blame everything on the Western diet because there are always other factors that contributes to the obesity and health risk factors.

There is nothing surprising about the development of the Western diet. It is just a process that food needs to undergo in order to satisfy the demand of the present day society, which became incomparably more hectic compared to the past and demand for instant food have reached its summit. Pollan must realize that the society had demanded science to figure a way to consume enough nutrition in order to suite their everyday needs in a amount of short time. Even in Japan, products with nutrition extracted from the whole, are becoming a big hit and the number of convenience stores are blooming. Pollan’s argument that the Japanese diet is healthier than the Western diet is not so true in the context of present day society. Its not just the Western world that faces health problems. The demand for fast consumption of food is a world wide hysteria. Pollan also argues that we should not eat what our great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. However, whether our great grandmother eat what she used to eat is questionable.

Moreover, the healthier diet that Pollan promotes is also more costly. Pollan suggests that we should eat wild food whenever we can. However, we must question how much of the wild is left in this world. More and more parts of the Earth is becoming polluted and contaminated. If there is scarcity of the wild, the more expensive wild products will get. In addition, growing plants and animal with better qualities makes food unaffordable to many. The better soil for plants and better food for the animals means that the farmers have to spend more in producing these goods. Hence, they will try to transfer this cost to the consumers, meaning food prices will rise. People can try to eat less and sustain this healthy diet but there is always a limit. When there is lack of financial sustainability, people tend to prefer quantity to quality.

All in all, Michael Pollan does directs the readers thought on how bad the Western diet is but he did not address several other factors, making the argument less convincing. Michael Pollan puts aside the faults of unhealthy lifestyles. Moreover, the hectic society encourages the people to eat these products of science while food with better quality is more expensive to get. Although Michael Pollen's argument is fairly convincing, it would have been more convincing if he considered other factors and how the Western diet could improve to suite the current society.