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Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food illustrates how the obsession with nutritional science has moved the Western diet into the wrong direction and has instead harmed the wellbeing of Americans alike. Pollan exposes the ideology of “creating and marketing all manners of new processed foods and permission for people to eat them,” demonstrating the food industry’s creativity in finding new ways to monetize everyday aspects of life such as food and nutritional services (Pollan, 52). The obsession with nutrition as a path to greater, more specialized health benefits has instead benefited the food industry, not the health of consumers. Rather Pollan attempts to simplify food and diet back to the bare basics of eating natural, traditional, unprocessed foods.
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I have been struggling to live a healthy lifestyle and I think Pollan’s book restores a sense of empowerment to take back control over our lives. But as much as I support his preposition to embrace healthy food choices, his ideas will simply remain an idea because much of the control lies beyond the average consumer’s hands. Access to quality, unprocessed foods that Pollan fights for is often limited by both market price in addition to availability and those factors are dictated by the food industry. The use of science and technology to process or replace more costly natural elements in food is a form that the food industry uses to cut costs, later advertising it as affordable products with the same or healthier ingredients. This is deceiving to consumers like myself and I often feel betrayed by the lies and the stranglehold the food industry has on my personal health. Pollan attempts to unbox the food industry in the sense that it is no different than any other business trying to make a profit and that the professionalization of eating has done more harm than good.