"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These are very simple yet such meaningful words in Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food. He does a wonderful job explaining his beliefs of why people should start paying more attention to what they are consuming and the reasons why eating healthy is such an important part of our every day lives.
So far, Michael's arguments in chapters 1-4 is mainly focused on the fact that he believed there was a time when humans "used" to know how to eat healthy. However, due to the complications and dilemmas caused by food industries, journalists, and nutritionists, the balanced dietary recommendations that were passed on to new generations have been confused. As a result of this situation, today's society is facing a world of bad advices, which then leads to poor decisions on what they should consume. For example, many products in the marketplace today are often packaged with health claim labels that are usually very misleading and wrong. So, if you want to eat healthy, you should probably avoid products that make health claims.
I agree with Michael's statement that eating food is also about pleasure, community, family, spirituality and about expressing our own identity apart from others. Our culture does have the biggest impact on the things we eat and the way we eat it. Sometimes, the foods that are consumed in certain families will never be consumed in others or maybe some families might even incorporate different culture's food into their diet. Nevertheless, it does not matter whether you are from a different culture and have different beliefs of what and what not to eat, everyone is and should still be seeking for the same thing; staying healthy!! Also, I would like to defend Michael's suggestion that if we, as consumers, would pay a higher price for better and well-grown food, but just purchase less of the product, we will definitely benefit not only ourselves, but also our environment at large. I believe that by doing so, we will be able to recover from a bad eating habit to a more balanced, enjoyable and enriching path to eating healthy.
How Personal Factors, Including Culture And Ethnicity, Affect The Choices And Selection Of Food We Make
Most major cities in the world are made up of diverse societies, consisting of a wide range of individuals from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Ethnicity refers to a social group, which shares certain distinctive features, such as language, culture, physical appearance, religion, values and customs. Culture on the other hand refers to how we do and view things in our group...
