Post 1: In Defense of Food

Michael Pollan starts off chapter one saying food is disappearing from store shelves. I did not grasp this concept right away, but when I finished reading I did. One of Pollan's main arguments is how nutrients are taking over food. Nutrients are the new language for food. I completely agree with this point. When consumers go shopping, most are not looking at the food, but rather what nutrients the food contains. Guarantee most people read the label first and that determines if one will buy the food. Similarly, Colleen Trombllye, a journalist agrees in her article The human being diet vs. reading nutrition labels, that people make food choices based on the components in the food. So far, our nation's choices has leaded us to failing health. As a culture we are beginning to define healthy food by what is in it, Pollan states. For example, he says most consumers do not look at food as a whole but rather its individual components. It is not the orange that is healthy, rather the Vitamin C in the orange, that makes it healthy.

Another main argument Pollan states is the more Americans worry about nutrition the less healthy we are becoming as a country. Some processed foods may be healthier than whole foods if one just looks at the nutrition label. So in reality, we are eating worse, but think we are all eating healthier. I disagree with this argument he is making. I know the difference between real and fake food and I don't depend on labels to tell me. He also says our new language of reading labels is destroying health. More than ever health claims are on boxes compared to healthy foods. Most think that if a food has a good health claim then it's better than whole foods without labels. Altogether, Americans are depending way to heavily on nutrition labels.