Blog Post #4

In the era of warfare, the importance of food was emphasized.  In contrast with the modernization of society and prosperity of technology, the development of the food industry and food products offer the consumers beyond basic food. The avant-guard author Michael Pollan wrote the book “In Defense of Food” to share his insights on the current American’s diet as well as how the nutritional values of the food sold in the market related to the health of the consumers. In the book, one of the arguments that Pollan focused on was the eating trend of western diet, and how the consumer becomes the victim of the modern food industry’s civilization.

 Entering the 21st century, humanity has made a significant stride on the living standard. Life’s pace in the city has also increased dramatically. In order to match the intensity of life’s pressure, the production of food to support humanity as effectively and quickly become the priority to sustain consumers. In order to achieve the goal, modern technologies are required to increase the production of food in a short period of time; therefore, processed food was introduced to the public. Pollan provides an example of research done on a group of diabetic Aborigines started on his take of a western diet. He provides sufficient medical background to explain the reasons behind the cause of the disease; however, he simply concluded his argument with statistics on the increasing diabetics in the American society. Pollan was attempting to lead the readers to the direction that the western eating habits are the major cause of poor health of general American public. On the contrary, Pollan did not provide detailed information on what the general American public eats, and how the western diet contributes to the increased health problems related to food. Instead, Pollan could make his argument more convincing by comparing the western diet with other cultural diets around the globe, and provide statistics to support the argument. Later in the book, Pollan used many pages to state his opinions on how many Americans need root canals, braces, and tooth extractions because of the western diet. This statement was misleading and inaccurate. The scientific reasons behind all teeth problems are poor personal hygiene, improper brushing of teeth as well as lack of regular teeth maintenance. Through out the entire book, Pollan consistently provides information and evidence of current American’s food society, however, he didn’t realize the lack of effectiveness of the evidence and how the readers will respond to the information. 

 Later in the book, Pollan once again stated five lines of evidence on how the American food industry has changed over the past decades. Examples include, how the food quality has changed to quantity, the food culture has turned into food science, etc. In the modern society, in order to support the massive population as well as for economic reasons, the food production has made a significant change compare to more traditional methods. Pollan has endless amount of evidences and statistics on the development of western food trends; however, he does not successfully convince the readers by simply stating the evidences and statistics. Pollan should focus on advocating the American public how to eat in a healthy way, at the same time stating evidence and statistics to convince the readers. As a well-known writer, Pollan should write a book towards a wide range of audience. The majority of readers of the book are Americans who grow up eating western diet. It is difficult for people who grow up eating western diet, while a person is telling them the eating habit is the origin of disease. Instead, Pollan presents many negative aspects of current food markets in America. He does not provide feasible solutions to fix the problems and convince the readers of his argument. Pollan simply blames the cause to the west.