I think a big point from lecture that was thought-provoking to me was the idea of metabolic rift. In particular the idea that because of how global, food consumption has become we have created imbalances in natural levels of nutrients/water from food producing countries by transporting nutrient rich foods to wealthier countries to be consumed. This cycle is countering the… Read more »
In one of my takeaways, I discussed how nutritionism and how many people are buying into the idea of eating certain nutrients in order to look a certain way, the “acceptable way”. I found this to be disturbingly true and Michael Pollan provides a paradox that I feel speaks true: The more we seem to focus on what we eat,… Read more »
What I find depressing and angering is the fact that defining land as property makes governments feel the need to control it, especially if, as Lester Brown discusses, a food crisis makes those without ownership of land vulnerable to economic instability and starvation. This puts most of the people who actually live and work on land at a disadvantage; when… Read more »
In his book In Defense of Food, Pollan plies readers with the advice to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” (1). This highly simplistic advice is meant to be in contrast to Pollan’s critique to the overly complicated and every changing world of nutritionism. While Pollan’s offers an entertaining and at times informative commentary on the science and economy… Read more »
In his article, Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?, author Michael F. Maniates grapples with what he calls the individualization of responsibility that has become embedded into neoliberal environmentalism. This critique starkly undermines Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, which ends with a vague prescription for prudent consumer choices as a method of subverting the industrial… Read more »
Throughout Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food, Pollan presents a case in defense of food as he attempts to defend food from nutrition science and the food industry. He makes the claim that professional advice about what people should consume has resulted in the population becoming less healthy, and even goes as a far as to argue that the… Read more »
Looking on the lectures and the readings for the past two weeks, some of the most intriguing things for me would be the roots of our modern world system and the ongoing food related problems we are facing now. Personally, for me, colonialism has a negative connotation. The reason for this is because in many modern-day movies, colonialists were always… Read more »
In todays globalized and diverse world, the concept of “diet” and types of diets have become an obsession that we humans stress and contemplate over. As a result of the public’s demand for “healthier” options for foods, the ideology of nutritionisism has become a tool for the food industry to make more profits and come out with new findings that… Read more »
Michael Pollen’s book In Defense of Food, and Nutritionalism at large, have always had a bit of affluent or bougie undertones but the end of this book amplified that undertone to an overtone. The book ends with a third act that is all about getting over Nutritionalism and eating better and thus a healthier life. The “Pay more, Eat Less”… Read more »
Images of genetically good looking people surrounded by (unhealthy) food that promises “fitness” is the epitome of how dysfunctional the Western diet is. I used to watch Fabio’s ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter!® ’ commercials all the time when I was little. No matter what channel I was watching, I could always expect an appearance from the hunky… Read more »