Not strong enough to defend his food... (Revised BP 4)

In today’s day and age Pollan’s ideologies appeal to a small audience, and even if he wanted to change the mindset of all his readers his writing techniques and methods would fail to do so.

In his current book his organizational way of writing, in which he meticulously makes an index with each and every chapter talking about a specific detail might educate the reader in some way but his writing is flawed in logic.

As readers we have the right to have our opinions and ideas. When an author wants to put his point across he should try and convince the reader as to why his opinion is the right opinion rather than force his opinion. In the 21st century many people would defend Pollan’s argument saying that the world has gone into the hands of the supermarket tyrants, processed food giants but if thought about it, doesn’t anyone understand that we ourselves allowed them to develop. He argues that there are more diseases now than ever, people are unhappy now more than ever and he points his finger straight towards the so called “western culture”. But is it only the western culture that is responsible? And how is it that only the Americans constitute the “western culture”?

Being a non-western myself I know that these problems are faced in other countries as well. Obesity, hypertension and other `diet’ related diseases are there in other countries because of their staple diet and junk food intake, not just because they have started to follow the American culture. The main reason as to why people were fit during our grandparents age was because of their lifestyle. They had to do more physical work while we tend to have more of a sedentary lifestyle. So it’s the way we live our lives that decides our health now rather than how much of processed food we eat.

As a reader one major drawback I found in his writing was that he kept on giving scientific facts.
While proving a point it is necessary to give evidence for your stance however too much of plain scientific talk like in Pollan’s book fails to stimulate the readers mind as the reader looses interest in the subject itself. For example when he talks about the various acids or risk factors for CHD or even the general surveys. These facts are either unnecessary or too hard to follow for a common man.

The other factor that was a drawback in Pollan’s argument was that he was not able to justify his counterarguments. He seemed to beat around the bush by just providing the facts and scientific knowledge. In today’s world people buy the things that they like. People have grown up eating all sorts of food and have made the conscious decision as to how much of organic food has to be eaten and how much of processed food. The government bodies that check and make sure that the food put up in the markets is eatable and good are set up for a reason. Even though the food might be genetically engineered and processed it is still food which can be eaten. These industries only flourish because there’s a demand for them so technically we are not forced into eating the processed food we actually prefer it.

In conclusion Pollan shows that he has strong ideals, however he fails to put his point across to us readers. In all if the world itself is happy with what they eat and how they live then why would they want to change their lifestyle?