Reading Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto has surprisingly helped me in becoming a better consumer and to make healthier choices in what I eat on a regular basis. As the title suggests, throughout the book the author tries to get the reader to take common sense approaches in improving the way they eat. The main argument he points out is that having science incorporated into the way we eat (especially the additives and chemicals put into foods) has vastly decreased the quality of our food and increased diseases and health complications in America. The “Western diet” compared to other regions of the world is obviously not the best diet and it would be in the best interest of everyone to go back to a more traditional diet. Pollan also wants us to remember to “Eat food, not too much. Mostly plants.”
Interestingly enough while I was writing this paper I was drinking Mango Passion Fruit Juice from Welch’s and I thought I would read the ingredients because there is a section in Pollan’s book that says to not eat or drink things with ingredients you don not know or cannot even pronounce. My juice contained high fructose corn syrup, filtered water, apple juice concentrate, mango puree concentrate, citric acid, natural and artificial