Attention Whole Food Shoppers Rhetorical Analysis

In today’s world, food is one of the most discussed topics. Robert Paarlberg, in his essay, Attention Whole Food Shoppers, spells this out as an ‘elite preoccupation’ (Paarlberg, 141), especially in the West. He argues that there is a current trend where modern eco-foodies are pushing for a sustainable world and are not taking into account the more crucial problem: global deprivation and hunger. Robert Paarlberg is a B.F Johnson professor of political science at Wesley College and an associate at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He wrote this essay for the Foreign Policy magazine’s May/June 2010 edition and aimed to inspire action among his readers and make people aware of how everyone contributes to the

Although his tone is persuasive and formal, he is straightforward with the tragic events he describes that take place in the underdeveloped countries. Throughout the essay, he makes a connection with his audience. In the beginning of the essay, he directly gets to the problem that he wants to discuss and establishes the message he wants to pass to his readers through his thesis statement. He presents a logical argument with the numerical data, along with dates and numbers that strongly support his claim of a global food problem. By referencing to recent events such as the “World Food Crisis” article of 2008 and the review of “environmental performance of agriculture”, that was published in 2008, he alerts readers that what he is discussing is currently happening, and is going to be a much larger impact on the world in the future. Slippery slope is used to explain the chain of events. The great recession of 2008 lead to the spike of essential food prices such as wheat and rice. Post recession, everyone believed that matters were contained but it was only the developed countries that survived the recession. Poor countries were badly affected which hurt their development processes and increased undernourishment. This proves his main ideology of the food crisis and supports his claim that if people don’t start acting, the food available in the Western part of the world

It is easy to understand the author’s dilemma through the data and information he provides chronologically. The issue addressed by Paarlberg is vast and cannot be tackled in a few paragraphs, therefore, he subcategorizes his topics in chronological order: “Original sins, Organic Myths and Seeding the future.” This would be one of the biggest strengths that Paarlberg uses to distinguish his ideas from one another. It is also easy for the readers to wrap their minds around the matter being discussed and helps them become aware of the subject that is going to be discussed. For example, in the subsection Original sins, Paarlberg discusses how the development and introduction of high yielding seeds and wheat, along with the Green revolution benefitted the rich farmers from countries such as America, but adversely affected the poor farmers from countries such as India, although they were great achievements at that time. Seeding the future talks about the alternatives that could be done to help poor countries. For instance, Paarlberg mentions that Westerners must appreciate the modern technology, they have to make food cheap and healthy for them, unlike poor countries that do not have access to modern technology, thereby facing high prices in essential foods (Paarlberg, 143). Also, foreign assistance to support agricultural improvements in poor countries would actually benefit them, as it has a strong record of