Blog post 4: Too Much Science

Michael Pollan, in his book “In Defense of Food,” uses considerable scientific evidence to argue that western diets should escape from the nutritionist approach and follow the common sense approach. Pollan builds all his arguments by strongly referring to scientific evidence. First, he establishes a statement that people should not depend too much on nutruitionism. Then, he explains how nutruitionism affects western diet in the era of industrialization. Lastly, he advises people should “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” to escape from nutruitionism. However, he uses too much scientific analysis for his argument, which makes his argument less effective.

Pollan uses too many professional scientific terms to establish his arguments, but they are not very effective and necessary. For example, Pollan writes abstruse words such as cell membranes to explain what Omega-3 and Omega-6 are and how they affect people. Nevertheless, do readers really care about how Omega-3 and Omega-6 work scientifically in the human body? The answer is no. Readers are not scientists, so they are not interested in understanding every complicated scientific word. They only care the fact that people who consume less Omega-3 become less healthy.

Although Pollan points out that science cannot explain the nutruitionism very well in his book early, however, he still uses a lot of scientific analysis to claim how and what we should eat in late part of the book. For instance, Pollan argues that nutrients such as calories cannot indicate whether food is healthy or not, but late, he also encourage people to eat more plant-based food because plant-based food has fewer calories, which is protective against many cancers. This contradiction confuses the readers and weakens his argument. On the one hand, Pollan mentions that nutritionism is “bad science.” On the other hand, he uses science to explain plant-based food is healthy. Moreover, one eating advice is also a contradiction: Although he says food cannot be simply broken down into nutrients, he still suggests to “be the kind of person who takes nutrimental supplements (multivitamin-and-mineral pill).”

Hence, Pollan focuses too much on food science instead of the food culture and history. In fact, culture affects people's eating habits more than science does. For example, the Japanese eat fish because of their culture, but not because of scientific information. Although he mentions some influence of culture, his analysis of culture is negligible compared to the analysis of science. Hence, history also changes people's diet effectively. American food is not as healthy as food of France and China largely because Americans have only two hundred years history of diet. The western diet is not developed enough.

Pollan always uses science to explain how food affects people’s health, however it could be wrong. For instance, Pollan suggests people to eat wild food and drink wine because scientific research shows that people who do that are healthier. However, wild food and wine may not make people healthy at all. People who eat wild food and drink wine are on average richer than people who do not. Rich people certainly have better house, better health care, and they live in cleaner environment with less worry about financial problems. All of these can be the reasons that they are healthier.

In all, in the “In Defense of food,” Pollan uses too much scientific analysis and argues too scientifically. His book looks like a textbook about health and biology. A lot of people cannot truly understand the scientific analysis in the book. After reading the book, how many people really remember the difference between omega-3 and omega-6?