If you ask people about their opinion on a type of food, ask them whether they think the food is “good” or “bad”, you would probably get a dozen different answers. Everyone wants to eat healthy, but everyone lives in a different way and have diverse understanding on a “healthy diet”, which lead them to make different food choices! So, is there really a way to differentiate “good” food and “bad” food? Or is there a standard of evaluation on a healthy diet?
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In the book “In Defense Of Food”, the author Michael Pollan introduces us the concept of Nutritionism, which defined as the ideology that the nutritional value of the food determine the value of the food itself. When I first see the term “nutritionism”, I was thinking mostly the positive sides of a healthy diet. Because nowadays, People are always trying to pursue a healthier diet and put more focus on the nutrients that could be assimilate from the food than the food itself. But is Nutrionism actually good for people? After reading the first few chapters, it leaves me with this question.Food is really complex, and it should not be only understood in terms of the level of nutrients that have contained, and the good nutrients can’t always mean a healthy diet. With this said, Pollan gives us three suggestions that he make toward a healthy diet, which are “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”. The three suggestions seem pretty easy and doable, but in fact, they are actually not that facile. There are so many different factors that people need to consider when they make their food choices. In the class, we have discussed the three main structures that limit our choice, which are time, cost and knowledge. Take college students as an example, they have a really busy schedule that they need to go to classes and work every day, so they won’t have enough time and money to do either food preparing or shop in farmer’s market. All they want are some convenience food that guarantee their daily essential nutrient needs. We all know that process food is less healthy than the real food, but why people are still purchasing them? Because with the food additives, process food could have longer shelf life and appeals tastier and look good. Processed food provides convenience and some other advantages for people.
Different people make different food choices, and with all the factors and limitations included,”Bad”food are not always consider to be bad for everyone and “Good” food are not always the ones that contains the most nutrients.