Blog Post 4

The Western society has grown so rapidly that it is no longer the same in any aspect at all especially when discussing food. Michael Pollan strongly argues that there is a solid line between the western and eastern diet because of how differently our lives are lived. Pollan strategically discusses how one should eat using simple logic that we should strive to eat like our ancestors. Not in the sense that we should hunt and kill our food, but in the sense that nutrition is what matters most which does not include the fatty foods of today’s society. He also touches on how the western society sometimes focuses on making money rather than the health of the consumer.

Throughout the entire book, Pollan repeatedly argues that there is a distinct difference between the western and eastern diet. Well this is obvious since both sides live different lives, but Pollan goes further into even the different eating habits, what products are made of, and more. Okinawa is a city in Japan where the locals have been known to be one of the “longest-lived and healthiest populations in the world”. This is because they practice hara hachi bu, which means eat up to eighty percent. Many westerners would find this very difficult since they are used to eating until the plate is clean. Studies have shown that Americans, tend to stop eating depending on the environment instead of their inner “full” feeling. Another example is the French. The French do not believe in seconds where Americans cannot wait till their second portions. Although eating less may be difficult at first, Pollan challenges us to imitate the Europeans or Asians in order to live a healthier life.

“Nutritionism, which arose to help us better deal with the problems of the Western diet, has largely been co-opted by it: used by the industry to sell more nutritionally ‘enhanced’ processed food and to undermine further the authority of traditional food cultures that stand in the way of fast food.” (Pollan 133-134). Pollan strongly argues that the western society has used nutritionism in a way that it makes the consumer even unhealthier. Every year seventeen thousand new food products are marketed which costs thirty-two billion to fund the marketing. Do we really need each and every one of those products to survive and be healthier? The answer is no. Pollan argues that instead of having these “authorities” tell us what to do, we should stick to the basics and trust in our traditional authorities, which we have done in the past.

By now one can clearly grasp what stand Pollan has on the western diet. Because of his beliefs, Pollan also goes into describing how one should eat. One of his many pieces of advice is to not eat anything your great grandmother would not recognize as food. Pollan believes that now our mothers and grandmothers are in the same boat as we are and that our great grandmothers are the only ones who are disclosed to modern foods. The modern foods now contain less water, fiber and micronutrients, but more sugar and fat. Pollan uses shopping with our great grandmothers as an example. They would never buy the products on the shelves of today’s supermarkets, but because of how our society has changed, we would.

In conclusion, Pollan gives specific examples and reports that logically prove that the western society is changing in the wrong way. Although his argument might have taken a while to reach, in the end he assures the reader with his statistics and research that the western society is in need of a change.