In the essay “Green monster” who do you believe is his intended audience and why? In “The Green Monster,” James McWilliams informs the reader about GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) and the affects it has on animals, plants, farmers and our food. Through multiple illustrations of the affects of GMO, he contends that GMO has various potential consequences, which may in fact be more positive than detrimental to food sustainability. His intended audience seems to be food consumers but more specifically, those uninterested in or wary of products which are genetically modified. This is reflected in his first-person narrative introduction as a consumer interested in a product known as “South River Miso.” He is primarily interested in this product due to it being labelled as “GMO free.” The author is using a food, which is a common interest between all people, in order to strike interest in the audience that they should be more educated and aware of the contents in their food. He purports that “It’s as likely as not that you know GMOs by their stock term of derision: Frankenfoods.”(Envision in depth p.g 351) This sentence in itself, supports my claim that the intended audience consists of general food consumers, of which may be “pro-organic” in their food choices. This is because he …show more content…
However, this is not his only purpose in writing this essay. Additionally, Michael Pollan seeks to reassure the reader that this change will eventually occur and how it will happen. He argues that the food movement of our generation has been successful in changing popular consciousness. However, it has been struggling with shifting, in any impactful way, the “standard American diet,” which he purports has only gotten worse since the 1970s (Envision in Depth p.g
In Michael Pollan’s essay “Escape from the Western Diet,” he directly to Americans about the western diet and why he believes they need to escape from it. The reason Americans should escape the western diet is to avoid the harmful effects associated with it such as “western diseases” (Pollan, 420). To support his view on the issue, Pollan describes factors of the western diet that dictate what Americans believe they should eat. These factors include scientists with their theories of nutritionist, the food industry supporting the theories by making products, and the health industry making medication to support those same theories. Overall, Pollan feels that in order to escape this diet, people need to get the idea of it out of their heads.
Michael Pollan’s “Escape from the Western Diet,” is used to directly talk to Americans about the western diet and how he believes they should escape from it. His main point is that we should escape to avoid the harmful effects associated with it such as “western diseases” (Pollan, 420). Then he goes on to describes what Americans believe they should be eating and how they don’t even seem to care. They are nutritionist with their theories, the food industry supporting the theories by new healthy products, and the health industry reaping the reward by making medication to support those same theories. For Americans to escape this diet, they must get the idea of it out of their heads.
Do-able Ideal Americans are spending more and more money on exercising and eating right in an effort to lose weight and get healthy, unfortunately, in reality, we are getting fatter and fatter every year. In his article “Escape from the Western Diet”, Michael Pollan argues that we need to stop eating the western diet to improve our overall health and leave the industrial food system. He introduces his idea with a three part rule “Eat food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.
This ongoing has been a large discussion for many people. He exemplifies that through Eric Schlosser of the “Dark Side of the All-American Meal” (2001) and how San Franciscans, fretted largely about, “the nutritional dangers to their children’s health, began the last century by banning “roving pie vendors” who catered to the “habitual pie-eating” habits of schoolchildren and prohibiting the sale of soft drinks on school campuses.” (Leitcher) The question then becomes at the center of all the health promotions advertised, the advice spoken, and advocacy, to what lengths do one literary novel change the social fabric of how Americans look at food
Relevance between Food and Humans with Rhetorical Analysis In the modern industrial society, being aware of what the food we eat come from is an essential step of preventing the “national eating disorder”. In Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, he identifies the humans as omnivores who eat almost everything, which has been developed into a dominant part of mainstream unhealthiness, gradually causing the severe eating disorder consequences among people. Pollan offers his opinion that throughout the process of the natural history of foods, deciding “what should we have for dinner” can stir the anxiety for people based on considering foods’ quality, taste, price, nutrition, and so on.
In the movie Food Inc., company representatives were asked to make known the products that Genetically Modified Organisms are present in, and the food companies were not willing to give up that information. Because people are not allowed to know the full extent of what is in their food the consumer does not have full control of what they are eating. Food during the 1900’s did not have things such as Genetically Modified Organisms added into their food so they did not need to be worried about extra things added to their food. The meat packing industry during the 1900’s was better at making known what was in the food they were producing because they did not have the different things added in like industries do
The three essays assigned this week had several common threads running through them. The strongest core theme is the rapid change in the food cycle in America and the vast changes that have taken place in the way by which we grow, produce, and process the food that average Americans eat. The food we eat now is drastically different from what our grandparents grew up eating and the three essays each examine that in a different way. Another theme is the loss of knowledge by the average consumer about where their food comes from, what it is composed of, and what, if any, danger it might pose to them. “Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear” by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele is a harsh look at the realities of food production in a country where large corporations, like Monsanto, have been allowed to exploit laws and loopholes to bend farmers and consumers to their
In the article, “The Green Monster: Could Frankenfoods Be Good for the Environment?”, by James E. McWilliams, GMO’s are thoroughly discussed and examined in recent history and current events. This paper will discuss the author, his past and present, his credentials, and otherwise relevant information, as well as the GMOs themselves and the flurry of activity surrounding their controversial existence. James E. McWilliams, an author and professor of history at Texas State University, hails from San Marcos, which is thought to be one of the longest inhabited lands in the Americas, as well as a foundry for culture and history, which might explain his choice of study when he pursued higher education. After attending Georgetown, where he majored
According to Pollan, the focus of society on the nutrients in food has not helped the obesity epidemic in the Western world. According to Pollan, “The industrial food supply was promptly reformulated
“Today in the United States, by the simple acts of feeding ourselves, we are unwittingly participating in the largest experiment ever conducted on human beings.” Jeremy Seifert certainly knows how to get viewers’ attention, as exemplified by the film blurb describing his 2013 documentary, GMO OMG. The frightening depiction of the food industry is one of many efforts to expose consumers of the twenty-first century to the powerful organizations that profit from national ignorance and lack of critical inquiry and involvement. Seifert effectively harnesses the elements of rhetoric throughout his phenomenal argument against remaining complacent about the food industry’s act of withholding of information about genetically modified organisms from
In “How Junk Food Can End Obesity,” by David H. Freedman, he claims that processed foods can help fix the obesity crisis in a more realistic manner, rather than whole-some foods. The popular opinion emphasizes whole-some foods because they aren’t informed about the similitude between processed and unprocessed foods. The essence of the essay is that people believe processed foods are bad and unhealthy for us, therefore whole-some foods are highly recommended for the health of an individual. Freedman mentions many prominent authors who wrote books on food processing, but the most influential voice in the food culture Freedman makes a point of is, American journalist, Michael Pollan. The media and Michael Pollan indicate that everything should be replaced with real, fresh, and unprocessed foods, instead of engineering in as much sugar, salt, and fat as possible into industrialized foods.
A corporatist markets off what they know would put them in financial ruin if people found out the truth behind what they claim is bettering the world. Once gathering enough positive claims, they proceed anyway. This is the quintessence of GMO marketing. Now, as the newest generation, millennials are likely to have been fed these genetically modified foods growing up, but have the technology to research and make their own intelligent and informed decision on whether these foods should be continued to be produced and distributed throughout the world. It is not being overly suspicious to not believe a corporation such as Monsanto, the leading agrochemical company, when with minimal research they publicize that GMOs are safe to consume.
Molly Childree Fleischbein EH 102.147 Draft February 5,2018 Our world is full of monsters, some imaginary, but most are legitimate and terrifying. In his text “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”, Jeffery Jerome Cohen examines the use of monsters in literate and cinema. Cohen makes the claim that the use of monsters, historically and presently, in forms of entertainment symbolizes more than just the fear they instill in audiences. A monster is no longer just a monster.
Michael Pollan’s Escape from the Western Diet connects well with what Mary Maxfield says in her article. Both Pollan and Maxfield talk about the ways that dieting is taking over American people’s healths and causing them to become even unhealthier. In Mary Maxfield’s argument she talks about how people believe everything that diet industries say, even though they know that the information they give you is false. This connects really well with what Michael Pollan talks about in his article, which is that people know that these theories that are used for the Western diet are not accurate, but yet they still decide to use the Western diet to help them become healthier.
On a differing take on the solution, “Escape from the Western Diet” by Michael Pollan provides the complete change of our diet and way of life based around cooking and eating meals. however creates a more powerful and logical argument against the “Western Diet” in his article, He uses a combination of his credibility from his publications on health and foods, evidence against the practices of the medical community, along with his solution to the issue of obesity to create an article that draws in audience’s emotions and rationale. Pollan’s strongest points in his article was the use of credibility and his ability to bring logic and reason to most of his points against medical society and the publics solution to obesity. Pollan comes in with a stronger