Shelby’s blog post begins by summarizing some of the arguments made by Michael Pollan in the first forty pages of In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto. She mentions his arguments about eating whole foods such as meat, vegetables, and fruits, as opposed to consuming processed or modified foods. These foods are apparently making Americans less healthy and lead to many of the health problems that people experience.
Shelby goes on to discuss and defend Pollan’s argument against nutritionism which is the focus food scientists have on just the nutritional content of the foods that our society eats rather on the whole food instead. I agree with her stance that the large manufacturers of processed foods are benefiting from supply consumers with what they think they require for nutrients. The article that she links to is a very good source to get her point across about the size of the size of this segment of industry. The article states that in 1993 U.S. food processors “provided approximately $119.2 billion worth of processed foods to foreign markets.” Moreover, Shelby shows society’s reliance on these industries by pointing out the fact that most Americans don’t grow any of their own food
The second argument that Shelby supports is the fact that the information that consumers receive every day changes and that there is no consistency. This problem is amplified by the fact that most people find information about their health on the internet which is full of opposing points which of course can be confusing.
I have to agree with the points that Shelby defends in her blog post. I found it well organized and thought out with clear arguments that flow throughout the post
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