All Sizzle and No Steak. (Blog Post #4)

In his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan made many different points and arguments against the newer food items on the shelves which contain more chemicals and nutrients than actual naturally grown food stuffs and tried to convince his reader to join the side of “slow food”. One of these points, that Nutritionism is an excuse for the food industry to market more on the western appetite and allows the western population to get fatter, caught my eye in particular. Pollan’s line of reasoning is very intriguing, and his appeal to common sense is extremely effective. I believe all of his points to be accurate and well thought out; however he fails to back any of them up with solid evidence. His arguments would most likely convince the average reader, but they would leave the skeptical reader unmoved.

Pollan pointed out a common fallacy right off the bat in his section “Eat Right, Get Fatter”; that eating less of a certain nutrient and replacing it with more of another will cause the consumer to lose weight. He noted that as of 1977 Americans have shifted their diet to eat less fat but more carbohydrates, so that their percentage of fat intake decreased, but their total amount of fat consumed is the same. A reduction of saturated fats came with a replacement with Trans fats, red meat replaced with white meat, and so on. Pollan said that Nutritionism is giving the majority of people an excuse to continue to eat more rather than listen to dietary advice that suggests eating less. Pollan did add a nice statistic to this statement, 42 percent in 1977 to 35 percent in 1995, to describe fat as a percentage in diet declining, but failed to touch on his other points. Personally, I’ve noticed that the size of meats are decreasing as well, rather than remaining the same and merely changing color as Pollan insists they do. My experience could be a unique and unusual one, but if this is the case then I would like to see evidence of it. Pollan blames the dietary guidelines and nutritionists for the western culture’s belief that substituting nutrients is the way to go. I’ve also noticed many dieticians and nutritionists advising to reduce intake of all types of food groups, except vegetables, rather than just fatty groups or carbohydrates as Pollan advises himself. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen a dietician say “Go ahead and eat all the low fat pasta you want!” If there is one out there, then I would think it would be beneficial to Pollan’s argument to add their name and maybe some of their work.

In the second part of the chapter Pollan addresses the food industry’s desire to keep nutrients popular. Without a doubt it is much easier to market highly processed food and nutrients than it is to market regular food. Pollan makes many great points when he touches on the changing health market allowing for new diet books, supplements, and changes in margarine at the discovery of every unhealthy macromolecule. His inclusion of the American Heart Association and FDA supporting things that are relatively unhealthy for you simply because they have a few nutrients considered healthy or less unhealthy than normal, he uses an example on corn chips, gives an emotional basis for the reader to pick up on. I agree. It is a lot easier to market things that you can brag about. You can market a new snack bar by talking about its nutritional benefits but how do you advertise apples? “Tastes like…….Apples?” Yet Pollan fails once more to knock home a ball gently tossed to him. Despite the perfect setup he does not use any specific examples on the salability of real foods as opposed to processed foods. Is it too much to ask for a few stock prices? Maybe the profit margins of a processed foods company?

Reading In Defense of Food left me very frustrated. I agree with the majority of Michael Pollan’s points, and I want to sing praises for his argumentative style, never before have I seen an appeal to common sense be so effective. However, Pollan leaves out too much data. He slights the dieting industry without referencing any specific dieticians. He makes an attack at processed food’s income without telling us what that really is. His points are good, his arguments valid, but he does not include enough information to be truly convincing. As in his dieting advice, his argument has all the carbohydrates and vegetables to be desired but lacks any meat.