Escaping nutritionism, the Western diet, and avoiding processed food is not as simple as it may seem. Factors that control what you eat include financial status, time, location, and knowledge. Financial status alone plays a large role in what people can and do eat on a daily basis. The food system in the U.S. is designed to increase yields to… Read more »
Human beings are in the top of the pyramid of food chain. We absorb water and nutrition from many kinds of foods such as vegetables, meats, and fishes. Recently, you can see many foods especially industrialized foods with signs, “organic” and “Genetic modification (GM)- free.” People sometimes prefer them to ones without such signs. It is possible for human beings… Read more »
Something that Michael Pollan talks about in his book In Defense of Food, and something that I feel we don’t discuss enough is nutritionism, and what that actually is. Nutritionism is really just breaking down food into the little ingredients that make it up, and what you’re actually get from your food, such as protein, fat, sugar, etc. I find… Read more »
Nutritionism, a food ideology described in Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, is an inaccessible notion of food justice that isolates middle and lower-class consumers. Pollan describes nutritionism as a relatively revolutionary new way of thinking about eating food, especially as this reductionist approach translates meals into scientifically calculated intake. Pollan even says nutritionism “might be the best thing ever… Read more »
To those who may be unfamiliar, greenwashing is a marketing tactic that promotes products as “green” or “healthy” without holding any real benefit to the consumer, the environment, or greater social equity. As mentioned by Jennifer McNulty, “‘buying green’ offers little real defense against environmental hazards and may pose an even greater threat by lulling people into a false sense… Read more »
Food: when you hear the word, what do you think of? A favorite food, or a reason to be social? Or do you instead think of food as a barrier to your health–do you view food strictly in terms of carbs and calories? Michael Pollan, a famous author, journalist, and professor, tells us in his book, In Defense of Food, we may… Read more »
In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan, outlines the best ways for people to eat for both their own well-being and the well-being of the planet. His encouragement of a change in personal habits (in this case food habits) is very much a microcosm of modern environmental and food movements. Pollan’s individualistic approach to the way we eat and interact… Read more »
What is food? Is food something made with purely natural ingredients? Can it just be a product with nutritional qualities? The sole definition of “food,” has drastically evolved throughout the recent years due to industrialization. Michael Pollan argues that the mass production of these fake food-like products ultimately damages the American food industry, hoping that we “avoid food products that… Read more »
It’s time for spring cleaning in my house, and my roommates have already begun to break out the all-purpose cleaners, the disinfectant wipes, and the bleach. The excitement of ridding our house of dust, crumbs, and stains is intoxicating–perhaps literally. This spring, as we prepare for a deep clean. I find myself wondering what compounds and chemicals we are leaving… Read more »
During this week in lecture, our class had the pleasure of watching a ‘commercial’ put out and created by an organization called SumOfUs that showed the devastating effects that the palm oil ingredient in Doritos chips can have on our planet’s forests. The commercial showed a couple who met and bonded over their love of Doritos, only to eventually visit… Read more »