Response to Michael Pollan

Food # 6 - Response to Pollan 1
For this assignment please respond briefly to Michael Pollan's argument, in the first few pages of Omnivore's Dilemma, that we as a culture lack a stable food culture like the Italians or French, are obsessed with health, are confused and anxious about food, and therefore easily succumb to various expert-directed food fads.

What food experts do you and your family pay attention to - scientists, journalists, chefs, commercials on tv, doctors, nutritionists, health officials, book authors?



First off, I'd like to fullheartedly agree with Michael Pollan; we have lost faith our sixth sense that allows us to decide, on our own, what to eat and have become subserviant little minions to the health/nutritionalist experts as a catastrophic result. Crap-tons of people trusted that obese psycho who created the Atkins diet with their health and nutritional well-being simply because he was a certified "health expert." Look at him, he's dead now thanks to his all meat diet. All meat and no carbs makes Atkins a dead boy.

A few years ago my mother went on the weight watchers, points system, and I don't recall her losing any weight, which is not to say that systems such as this don't work, but its just interesting to see these highly praised diet plans fail. Its not so much the controlling that prevented my mother from dropping a few pounds, but more so the outlook. How do we as Americans look at eating?; with enough self control and hard work we can look forward to a brighter, lighter, and thinner future.

I see a direct correlation between the outrageous number of hours most Americans work per week and the way we eat. According to the documentary, "the overspent American" Americans work more hours than any other people on the entire planet, even more than those little Japanese kids that we've stereotyped into being workaholics. Just think about it; people all around the country wake up at 8 AM (if they are lucky), they have no time to make themselves breakfast, and because they are such a rush they buy the quickest, most convenient food possible; fast food. Then after hours of work they take their car/subway back home, possibly grabbing a snack along the way, and then they sit, exhausted, on their couch in front of the boob tube while they stuff crap down their throats. When we start gaining weight from all this quick, lazy eating, we are too exhausted and busy to have time to think about and savor that which we eat so we go to the professionals after years of mindless subserviance to our superiors, or those with the big label on their collar, and we trust people like doctor Atkins with our diets. It all kinda makes sense. This is not to say that the french are always out and about, eating wholesome meals in stead of junk food, but Americans are well known for their crappy eating habits and tense work situations. Stereotypes are there for a reason.

My family has never really relied on health professionals with the exception of my mothers encounter with the weight watchers diet. We've all gone with the flow and changed it for ourselves without the advice of health officials. We have, however, changed our diets according to commonly known things about eating, just like yur average American. Recently I've been paying attention to Dr. Andrew Weil; a friend of mine told me about him and his vitamin system, and while I did not buy into it (literally) I did consider doing it for some time.