...What did you say was wrong with 'MERICANS?

Pollan diagnoses Americans as having an eating disorder for a few reasons.  First off he says that we are constantly going through “fads” deciding new diets that determine how we should and should not eat.  These diets catch on fast and are gone even faster.  They happen for a few reasons.  One, scientists are always analyzing food and the things that make it up.  Nutrients, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates, etc.  With this scientific analysis of food, people are told what is good and what is bad even though they cant even see these things.  Surely fats are bad, but he says that they will diagnose a part of something we have been eating for years as deadly.  He lacked an example for this part, but I can see the point he tries to make.  Americans rely too heavily on science for all explanation rather than just human instinct. 

            Secondly, Pollan argues that Americans have a bad style of eating.  Our eating habits are not good or our bodies.  This is true for a number of reasons.  Food is marketed to everyone, and from a young age people eat things that aren’t good for them due to tricky marketing techniques.  Also, food is becoming easier to eat; more and more meals can simply be microwaved.  This causes breaks in what once was the typical American eating schedule, 3 meals, dinner, most importantly with the family.  Marketing techniques also advertise certain foods as “low carb” or “low fat” these words will cause a health conscious eater to buy their product.  Scientists constantly manipulate the structure that makes up most foods, and in return they aren’t as natural or balanced.

            Americans think of themselves as a health conscious people, but the percentage of unfit, even obese, people, begs to differ.  We eat on a weird schedule.  Food is marketed to us in a way that allows us to eat on our own time.  “The result is a nation of antinomian eaters, each of us trying to work out our dietary salvation on our own(Pollan, 3).”  We snack too often, we eat too much, and we have lost our once healthy eating schedule.  The most interesting point Pollan makes is this, the reason for our unfit, fat, nasty lifestyle is not due to the food we eat.  It is due to the way we eat it. 

            The way I eat isn’t really laid  down into any cookie cutter type mold.  It changes daily.  Being a busy student makes this tough, but there are a few rules I try to live by. 

·      One, always eat some fruit.  Why? Fruit is one of my favorite foods, it is sweet, and turns out its healthy for you.  Win win. 

·      Two, eat whatever you want, whatever looks good to you, whatever sounds appealing.  I do keep health in mind, but knock on wood I’ve have a fast metabolism my whole life so why should I start to care?  Anyways, all bad things are pumped out of the body with a little exercise right? 

·      Three, try to touch all food groups, sounds like a 3^rd grade lesson, but turns out the people who told you that were probably right when they said it. 

·      Four, try to eat more smaller meals.  I am all about snacking.  I will eat two small lunches. You may see a problem in that but I don’t.  Quite frankly I don’t care if you do, because I’m going to keep doing it.  Why would I like a food baby?

·      Five, don’t eat too much right before bed.  Why? Someone once told me its bad.  Plus breakfast will taste that much better the next morning.