There is no doubt about the benefits of eating plants which promote health. However, back to livestock products. It had become industrial and has been marketed heavily, creating unnatural demand. Therefore, people are affected by this problem. According to the author Jennifer Goldberg who wrote ‘4 reasons why you overeat’ (n.d.), there are four main explanations why we eat too much food, including meat and meat-free products: The first reason is we are in the habit of overeating.
The Review: Part III of The Omnivore’s Dilemma The Review: Part III of The Omnivore’s Dilemma Part III, chapters 15, 16 and 17 of Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma discusses the dilemmas involved in foraging for foods that represent the three edible food kingdoms, the omnivore’s curse in trying to figure out what is safe to consume, and the ethics in consuming animals. Pollan’s book was very insightful and I was compelled to reconsider my present eating habits and some of the ramifications in my decisions when deciding on my food choices. Many Americans, including myself never take the time to consider what processes our food goes through before it hits our dinner table. Usually, the most important consideration is our desire to fulfill and satisfy your specific taste preferences. Very seldom does the topic of where or how our finely prepared vegetables are grown or what our medium well steak went through before meeting its ultimate fate as dinner.
The Dalai Lama simply and humbly replied “I eat what is served.” There are a lot of people who have specific preferences towards what they eat for many different reasons. The more popular of these special dietary choices are vegetarians and vegans. Vegetarians do not eat meat of any kind but will eat eggs or dairy products and vegans do not eat any food that comes from animals in any way In “Pro-Animal, Pro-Life,” Eberstadt uses an ethical and moral argument to debate in favor of the benefits a vegetarian diet holds over carnivorous or omnivorous dietary lifestyles. Although Eberstadt seems to be passionate about her point of view, she uses manipulative writing and exploits the delicate nature of human emotion to back up her own claims, all the while overlooking important factual and rational aspects of the issue, but uses deceivingly relevant events and facts from history to ease up the persuasion process of the reader towards her favor. The article “Pro-Animal, Pro-Life” by Mary Eberstadt is about the relationship between vegetarianism and veganism with abortion.
The book Fast Food Nations by Eric Schlosser is written to give the viewers an understanding on where their money is heading to when they purchase fast food. The Book is separated into 2 sections, “The American Way” and “Meat and Potatoes.” The book provides a sort of historical background of the fast food industries. It also shows the dark side of the industry. Such as unsafe and unsanitized slaughterhouses with zero respect to the employees. He provides factual evidence to back up this information.
Applying functionalism to cultures would be demonstrated in the fact that some cultures have a purpose and a meaning to how they live. For example, some southern cultures find it acceptable to consume whole animal’s, verses wasting the food they have. They would find it unacceptable to discard parts of an animal when their culture or community is in need of food. What we would consider disgusting is a delicacy in their society. The same can be said when we look at history and focus on recessions and depressions and how those cultural times have prohibited people from waste nothing.
There are individuals who claim in the media that we need to return to the way our ancestors consumed food, the Stone Age Diet or Paleo-diet is one such claim. Comparisons between the diets of human ancestors and today's individual is vastly different, as is the life style. This reasoning is the controversy over the Paleolithic diet and today's grain and dairy-based diets in the scientific and medical fields of study. Modern man does not lead the same lifestyle as the Paleolithic humans did; there are differences that have an effect on food consumption and nutrition. Through anthropology, we know what our ancestor ate and how they lived.
Meat Morality Many animal rights activists claim that the act of eating meat contributes to animal cruelty. Michael Pollan would refute this claim saying that we, as humans, can and should eat animals as long as we treat them with respect while they are alive. In his article, “An Animal’s Place”, Michael Pollan addresses the moral issue of whether or not it is right to consume animals. He goes to great lengths to research this topic to find a justification to eat meat. He does a great job supporting his opinion that we should be able to eat animals, by using narratives, compare and contrasts, and citing experts that he researched.
The Greek diet is a mix of many different factors. Instead of meat, the main source of protein is that of beans e.g. chick beans and lentils. They eat seasonal foods, made at home from scratch, with fresh local produce, sourced from the markets at which a majority of the Greek population still use to do their food shopping daily. It’s healthy, clean eating generally – Food without preservatives or additives, nothing fancy, no sauces or marinades but high quality locally produced ingredients.
They have become vegetarians, and some have become almost pure meat eaters. People have had life altering causes that affected their view on whether to eat meat or become a vegetarian; these eating habits have similarities but also differences by the two opposing groups. Sometimes things can occur in someone’s life that causes them to make a drastic change in their lifestyle. Meat eaters can become leaf eating herbivores, and also vegetarians can grab ribs and change into ravenous carnivores. One of my friends used to eat meat and only ate vegetables because he was made to.
Vultures are the one of the only animals that will consume the turkey, but considering that they are scavengers that isn’t very impressive, they will eat anything dead. Humans normally eat animals that are herbivores. Because they have a fuller, richer taste. The turkey eats insects and snakes so the are technically meat eaters, causing them to have a weak and depressing taste. Also the turkey isn’t the healthiest food for you, it has many fats and cholesterol stored in its tasteless breast and wings.