The Pleasures Of Eating Analysis

When buying food, when do you second guess purchasing it because you don’t know where it came from, how much it costed to be manufactured, or if it has been dyed or chemically treated? Consumers of food are quite oblivious to what is done to the food they purchase and eat. In Harvey Blatt’s, America's Food:What You Don't Know About What You Eat, he states, “We don't think much about how food gets to our tables, or what had to happen to fill our supermarket's produce section with perfectly round red tomatoes and its meat counter with slabs of beautifully marbled steak” (Blatt). He also goes to say, “We don't realize that the meat in one fast-food hamburger may come from a thousand different cattle raised in five different countries. In fact,

Consumers pay whatever the cost is without asking questions such as how fresh and clean it is, where it came from, is it chemical free, how it was manufactured, and many more. The food industry, like all industries, cares more about volume and price rather than quality and health. People are very ignorant about the foods they eat daily, and Berry argues that they need to become more aware. Readers should feel they can eat more responsibly and restore their consciousness of what is involved in eating after reading this

The essay repeatedly states that we do not know what our food goes through, where it comes from, and that we are ignorant to the food industry. Berry says, “The consumer must be kept from discovering that in the food industry, the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price.” In basic terms, the food industry does not care about the health of their consumers but their profit. The essay also repeats questions that the reader should ask themselves, such as,

How fresh is it? How pure or clean is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? How far was it transported, and what did transportation add to the cost? How much did manufacturing or packaging or advertising add to the cost? When the food product has been manufactured or ‘processed’ or ‘precooked,’ how has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value? (Berry) By repeating these questions and statements throughout the article, Berry really makes readers think about things they do not know about their food. Repetition allows him to emphasize his thoughts and draws attention to his main point. These phrases are repeated with the word “how,” because that specific word makes the readers really think. These questions, once people begin to answer them in your head, lead to negatives that the food industry contains. Berry wants the people to know the industry does not care about their health; only about