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Summary Of Consumer A Republic Of Fat By Michael Pollan

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“Michael Pollan’s ‘The Consumer- A Republic of Fat analysis” Michael Pollan is an established writer who has, in fact, won many awards. He has written several books, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), as well as, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008). Michael Pollan’s “The Consumer- A Republic of Fat” is a short essay in which Pollan is writing about the similarities and differences between the alcoholic republic and the republic of fat. Was Pollan successful in comparing and contrasting the alcoholic republic and the republic of fat? In this Essay, Pollan compares the alcoholic republic to the republic of fat in order to show the similarities between the two. Pollan compares the republic of fat to the alcoholic republic in paragraph six of the essay saying, “… we’re eating today much the way we drank then, and for some of the same reasons.” (qtd in Prentice Hall 284). Pollan goes into more depth on the similar reasons for …show more content…

Pollan writes about the current obesity issues in America in paragraph six, “According the surgeon general, obesity today is officially an epidemic; it is arguably the most pressing public health problem we face, costing the health care system an estimated $90 billion a year.” (qtd. in Prentice Hall 284). These issues are said to affect even more people than the alcohol related diseases. Pollan talks about the obesity issues again in paragraph six, “Three of every five Americans are overweight; one of every five is obese.” (qtd. in Prentice Hall 284). This elaborates on the fact that although corn whiskey took a serious toll on the health of people in the 1800’s, the use of corn in everyday foods has affected the health of many people in modern day America negatively also. Pollan uses rhetoric in many of his contrasts and comparisons in order to get his point

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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.

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In “How Junk Food Can End Obesity” David Freedman argues that ending processed food is not going to help solve obesity problems. He knows that “Junk food is bad for you because it’s full of fats and problems carb” (Freedman 515). Freedman believe that we should use technology to improve fast-food by taking out the unhealthy products in it, instead of getting rid of fast-food entirely. He also talks about his experiences with food between wholesome food and McDonald’s. He discusses how McDonald’s smoothies have the lowest calories and are cheapest out of all other smoothies he had.

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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.

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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.

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In the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Pollan claims we should be more knowledgeable about what we consume as omnivores. As omnivores we have a variety of food, we can choose from, however, we don’t regularly make the best decisions for ourselves. Pollan argues this by showing us where our food really comes from and how we can find many unwanted extras. Pollan shows us that we’ve evolved as humans from how we used to eat to how we eat now. Pollan argues this by introducing us to all the food chains we value today, some much more than others.

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In David Freedman’s essay How Junk food Can End Obesity, Freedman makes the claim to policy arguing that instead of demonizing processed foods, Americans should instead support the idea and production of healthier processed and junk foods. He calls on the public to recognize that while many products on the market these days are labeled as “wholesome” and “healthy”, consumers should learn to become aware of the fat and calorie content in these products because many times they have the same- if not more- fat and calorie contents as that of a typical Big Mac or Whopper. In his essay, Freedman primarily places blame on the media and the wholesome food movement for the condemnation of the fast and processed food industries saying, “An enormous amount of media space has been dedicated to promoting the notion that all processed food, and only processed food, us making us sickly and overweight” (Freedman), he further expresses that this portrayal of the

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In both David Zinczenko’s “Don’t Blame The Eater” and “ Radley Balko’s “What You Eat is Your Business”, the argument of obesity in America is present and clear from opposing viewpoints. Both articles were written in the early 2000’s, when the popular political topic of the time was obesity and how it would be dealt by our nation in the future. While Zinczenko argues that unhealthy junk food is an unavoidable cultural factor, Balko presents the thought that the government should have no say in it’s citizens diet or eating habits. Zinczenko’s article was written with the rhetorical stratedgy of pathos in mind.

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Author of the essay “Eat Food: Food Defined” Michael Pollan, states that everything that pretends to be a food really isn’t a food. Michael persuaded me into agreeing with his argument by talking about how people shouldn’t eat anything their great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food and avoid food products containing ingredients that are unpronounceable, lists more than five, and contains high fructose corn syrup. He opened my eyes to information I wouldn’t have thought about or researched myself. He got into depth about a type of Sara Lee bread that contains way more ingredients than needed to make the bread, including high fructose corn syrup that isn’t good for you. Marketers are doing this to sell more of their product by making it taste

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