In Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food,” Pollan introduces the audience with a brief background about the development of nutritionism in the American political sphere in the 70s. One of the concepts that stood out to me from the first week’s reading was the important role of language in promoting nutritionism. In the first part of his book, Pollan provides us with an example of South Dakota Governor McGovern’s conflict in balancing the interests of South Dakota farmers and the health of all South Dakota constituents. During this time McGovern was confronted with the reality that processed foods were responsible for increased heart diseases, obesity, and other health risks. In sum, McGovern had attempted to address these public health issues by explicitly advising his constituents to avoid processed foods in exchange for natural foods. Farmers were extremely unhappy about the language he used because it advising South Dakota residents to avoid processed foods would harm their profits. McGovern was pressured to use language that recommended eating foods with certain amounts of “x” nutrients instead of targeting food groups as a result of the backlash and political risks involved in using clear language. Pollan demonstrates to us that the language used surrounding food in our culture and passed state bills matters. In this situation, McGovern used language that isolated the good and bad nutrients in food in an attempt to avoid hurting his farmer constituents profits. However, the use of his language enabled to South Dakota constituents to continue purchasing processed food so long as they had “good nutrients” in them while completely disregarding the other health risks involved in consuming “fake food.”
In the current popular discourse, there is a debate about the importance of language. For people on the right side of the political spectrum, political correctness is frivolous when using terms to describe groups of people or discuss issues such as immigration. On the left side of the political spectrum, language matters significantly. However, the problem of political correctness has been introduced to me in a context regarding contemporary immigration reform. But, Michael Pollan’s example of McGovern demonstrates the importance of language in politics beyond describing demographic of people. Language matters in the politics of food. Language has been a powerful tool in propagating nutritionism. It has obscured the severe health risks involved in consuming processed foods by highlighting the good and bad nutrients, but completely disregarding the existing health risks included in processed foods nonetheless.
In Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food,” Pollan introduces the audience with a brief background about the development of nutritionism in the American political sphere in the 70s. One of the concepts that stood out to me from the first week’s reading was the important role of language in promoting nutritionism. In the first part of his book, Pollan provides us with an example of South Dakota Governor McGovern’s conflict in balancing the interests of South Dakota farmers and the health of all South Dakota constituents. During this time McGovern was confronted with the reality that processed foods were responsible for increased heart diseases, obesity, and other health risks. In sum, McGovern had attempted to address these public health issues by explicitly advising his constituents to avoid processed foods in exchange for natural foods. Farmers were extremely unhappy about the language he used because it advising South Dakota residents to avoid processed foods would harm their profits. McGovern was pressured to use language that recommended eating foods with certain amounts of “x” nutrients instead of targeting food groups as a result of the backlash and political risks involved in using clear language. Pollan demonstrates to us that the language used surrounding food in our culture and passed state bills matters. In this situation, McGovern used language that isolated the good and bad nutrients in food in an attempt to avoid hurting his farmer constituents profits. However, the use of his language enabled to South Dakota constituents to continue purchasing processed food so long as they had “good nutrients” in them while completely disregarding the other health risks involved in consuming “fake food.”
In the current popular discourse, there is a debate about the importance of language. For people on the right side of the political spectrum, political correctness is frivolous when using terms to describe groups of people or discuss issues such as immigration. On the left side of the political spectrum, language matters significantly. However, the problem of political correctness has been introduced to me in a context regarding contemporary immigration reform. But, Michael Pollan’s example of McGovern demonstrates the importance of language in politics beyond describing demographic of people. Language matters in the politics of food. Language has been a powerful tool in propagating nutritionism. It has obscured the severe health risks involved in consuming processed foods by highlighting the good and bad nutrients, but completely disregarding the existing health risks included in processed foods nonetheless.
I would agree with what the author wrote regarding language’s ability to frame issues, and to manufacture public opinion on certain matters. However, I would add that Senator McGovern, who at the time chaired the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, was as many politicians are, faced with having to choose between satisfying several competing interests. On one side was the scientific community which was arguing that red meat and processed foods were linked to health consequences when consumed consistently, and on the other were, as the author notes, McGovern’s own constituents, many of whom were farmers and ranchers who raised principally cattle. Not wishing to endanger his own political career, McGovern chose to simply cast the truth in a different light, by promoting the ideology of nutritionsm. I would disagree with the author’s description of this as “political correctness”, as McGovern wasn’t trying to use language viewed as less offensive by the public for fear of reprisal over the language itself, he was more obfuscating the real advice of the scientific community in order to preserve his own ambitions, and thus was more acting out of selfishness. Following this track, you can see the connections between the use of selective language in many aspects of the global food system. For instance, in the international markets there is high demand for arable plots of land in small countries that can be used by foreign investors to grow crops for sale in other countries, countries with larger, more educated populations and less room for agriculture. The official term for this is “foreign land acquisition”, which sounds like a business term, a phrase describing the work of some innovative, dedicated businessman who’s taking advantage of a free market, instead of what it actually is: a land grab made possible in no small part by the poor economic conditions in smaller underdeveloped nations that are in turn caused partly due to global “free trade”. These nations often have nothing left to offer to the global market but their land, and so their citizens are persuaded to work as indentured servants, producing food for people in other countries with their farmland while they themselves go hungry and struggle to provide for their families.