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Summary Of Bad Food By Mark Bittman

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SUMMARY Food columnist for the New York Times and author of culinary books, Mark Bittman, in his essay, Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables, published in July 2011, addresses the topic of unhealthy eating habits and argues that the government should tax unhealthy foods and use the money generated from the taxes to subsidize staple foods. Bittman supports his claim first by appealing emotionally when discussing the negative effects of bad eating habits such as diabetes and cancer, second drawing a comparison to other items that are taxed by the government which are unhealthy, and lastly by utilizing a substantial amount of evidence to back up his ideas. The author’s overall purpose is to discuss the current relationship between the government …show more content…

Throughout his paper, Bad Food?, he is constantly utilizing evidence and referring to current statistics and scenarios to back up the statements he is presenting. This is evident when the author draws a parallel with the current issue of eating too much unhealthy food and smoking, “The historic 1998 tobacco settlement… was far from perfect, but consider the results. More than half of all Americans who once smoked have quit and smoking rates are about half of what they were in the 1960s.” By doing this, his proposal becomes more accepted in the eyes of his audience. The success of the government's intervention with tobacco gives the feeling that a similar outcome would follow taxing unhealthy food. In addition, when discussing the resulting benefits, Bittman highlights that, “[A] assistant professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health predicted that a penny tax per ounce on sugar-sweetened beverages in New York State would save $3 billion in health care costs over the decade, prevent something like 37,000 cases of diabetes, and bring in $1 billion annually.” This demonstrates how the author utilizes studies in order to justify his tax. Such impressive numbers are hard to argue with and he goes on to propose ways the government could use the money from the taxes to improve communities. His use of the logos was effective in the sense that his claims seemed more justified and would personally benefit the

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