Summary Of Michael Pollan's Unhappy Meals

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Exercising and eating healthy have been the most trending “fad’s” in recent years. Whole grain foods, organic foods, gluten-free foods, are all some of the words we associate with being “healthy.” Most food brands tend to focus on nutritional value and effects. In Michael Pollan’s article “Unhappy Meals,” Pollan addresses the confusion on the highly debated topic, of why we shouldn’t base our eating on only nutritional value. Pollan uses the term “rise of nutritionism” to refer to the changes that have occurred in the food industry. This change includes the way that we look at food. Pollan uses the term nutritionism immensely throughout his essay. But what exactly is nutritionism? Nutritionism is this word Michael Pollan has made. He refers to this word as how people look at food as the nutrients it has instead of the actual item itself. This has become a norm for people all throughout the world. Instead of looking at food for what it is: beef, pork, and chicken it is looked at exclusively as protein. “Is that it is not quite the same as nutrition. …show more content…
Big industries are exploiting the desire for consumers to want to eat healthy by adding health claims to most of their products. Nutritionism gets people to think if something has a certain nutrient they will need to eat that product. If people think something has fiber, and they need fiber for their diet, they will not see the difference between a Fiber One bar and a pear. They both have fiber, so why not go for the Fiber One bar instead? The reason you should not go for the Fiber One bar is because it is a processed food, an edible food like substance, while a pear is not. A pear is real food. Nutritionism is getting people to forget about the actual nutrients in a product, and hence people are not able to distinguish the differences between the types of