Critique of Michael Pollan's Work

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Eat Food Not Food-like Substances Pollan’s states, that food like substances have overtaken ordinary food on the supermarket shelves. His motto is to avoid food that contains unfamiliar, unpronounceable, or has more than five ingredients including high-fructose corn syrup. He says to eat safely people should go back a couple generations and look at the foods they used to eat. Pollan says if our past generations wouldn’t recognize eat, then we shouldn’t eat it. He said by shopping the parameter of the supermarket people could find the things their past generations would recognize like the fresh, whole, and unprocessed foods. Pollan uses Go-Gurt Yogurt tubes as one example of the things individual’s ancestors would have not recognized. He seems to think they would think it was toothpaste or something other than yogurt. Pollan also says if they would have read the ingredients on the Go-Gurt which includes high-fructose corn syrup, modified corn starch, and kosher gelatin just to name a few they would of said it was not yogurt. Yogurt in their time was simply made of milk inoculated with a bacterial culture. Food today, for example, has a lot of high-fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient, says Pollan. It helps sweeten food so it tastes better. It is used mainly because it is cheap. Pollan suggests this is not good for people however this direct link has not yet been made in scientific studies (Battle, Free Lance-star 1). He points out some of the possibilities; however he has no facts to prove these theories. Another possibility for this not being good for people could be people eat too much of these types of foods and do not get enough exercise. Pollan goes on to say, “Don’t eat anything incapable of rotting”. He says that should be a personal policy for people to avoid. By doing so they would avoid all the chemical additives, corn, and soy derivatives they

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