Wednesday, November 25, 2009

In Defense of Food (BlogPost #4)

In today’s fast-paced setting and unfit lifestyle, the principle and practice of eating the right food turn out to be a remarkable challenge. The failure of consuming the real nourishing food and difficulty of differentiating healthy foods from harmful ones, in turn, result to a jeopardized health or simply unfit living. In fact, it is not a matter of eating more or consuming a lot of food but the premise of making a stand about the necessity to argue and defend healthy and fresh foods as good requirements for a person’s health.

In the book In defense of food: An eater’s manifesto by Michael Pollan, the said condition boils down to a dispute whether the foods that people eat nowadays are truly healthy or they are just made and looked to be healthy. The Pollan’s argument, which his book clearly presents, exemplifies a dispute to the apparent loss of healthy foods, hence the need for a guiding principle to look after fresh rather that processed foods. Such situation requires one’s participation in supporting the food which humans eat and protecting a healthy eating from the current misconception and misrepresentation brought about by processed and ready to cook or eat foods.

Such argument is made in order not to be victimized by the existing damaging food culture and to salvage whatever is left of the supposedly healthy cuisine or foodstuff in the market. The author, through its book, therefore is a catalyst to the identification or realization and eventual resolution of the argument concerning an eater’s policy. That is, the need to defend food in the midst of its unhealthiness and ultimately recover the healthy purpose of eaters and the value of enjoyable eating.

Pollan's In Defense of Food is attributed to an argument about the right food to eat, the non-consumption of unhealthy food and the fundamentals of giving importance to your health. The author is very specific with his position in the book, which is the need for a policy which serves as the defense mechanism of healthy and fresh foods against made-to-look processed foods.

The book disputes that while people are previously knowledgeable of the food they need to eat; confusions, complications and distortions are the problems now besetting humans' food consumption. The said issues are brought about by the people within the food industry such as as the marketers and nutritional scientists and in connivance to the media. It is the position of the book that the public needs to be protected from these entities whose primary objective is to gain and not to provide the people with healthy foods and healthy living in general.

The book is a proof of today's complicated food landscape which was made heavy with damaging advices concerning real and unreal foods as well as misleading health claims which eatable food-like materials are made to appear. To strongly argue the ironies of the kind of food nowadays, Pollan immediately presents a manifesto so that the public realizes the need to defend foods and benefit from eating real, healthy and fresh foods.

The book serves to be an effective tool in defending the right kind of foods which paves the way for the affirmation of enjoyable and healthy eating. The book's argument justifies the significant connection between health and diet; reminds the people of the policy of defending foods against forms of intimidation and lastly, positively aims for the recovery of a more healthy, sensible, balanced and gratifying approach to food.

It is commendable that the book's argument is clearly and immediately presented by the author. The argument which states: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” is very simple but definitely convincing. It is in the way that Pollan and his work are convincing and able to make the readers acknowledge and realize the value of eating the right kind of food; of the need to deviate from processed food, and the necessity to defend healthy and fresh foods which are the true source for pleasurable eating habit and fit living.

The argument is credible and persuasive because Pollan succeeds in criticizing the Western diet, which, he explains, is the primary reason for widespread health concerns like heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes. By revealing the medical implications of processed foods, the book's position becomes convincing since the replacement of foods - from being natural into fake and unhealthy ones - sounds the alarm for people to defend foods from total damage.

The argument of the book is undoubtedly convincing because it also resulted in the presentation of the author's purpose which is to assist in the recovery of human health and happiness as eaters of healthy foods. If Pollan is quick and effective in exploring his argument, he is likewise prompt in telling the readers that such goal requires defending foods from both from the field of nutrition science and from the food industry itself.

It is further commendable that the book justifies such argument with much conviction. This is specifically manifested when Pollan says “That food and eating stand in need of a defense might seem counterintuitive at a time when over nutrition is emerging as a more serious threat to public health than under nutrition”. The manner and content of today's foods definitely create harmful impacts not only to one's health but his overall personality as well. Such reasons are concrete evidence of the need to argue against unfit foods and the position to defend the foods which people are eating. Ultimately, the book's argument is indeed convincing because eating healthy and fresh foods are needed not only for good health but also to the achievement of gratifying and satisfying eating.

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