Unhappy Meals Summary

HarleyAnn Heid

English 1 (WC FA16)

Dr. Javier Ávila

9/10/2016

Michael Pollan, “Unhappy Meals” Summary

Ironically, Michael Pollan kicks off “Unhappy Meals” recommending to, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” On one hand, ironically presenting readers with in a way can be regarded as a vague summary. On the other, stresses the importance of indulgeing in natural foods, not the overly-processed junk that fills up supermarkets and the average americans kitchens. Incorporating the naked truth behind “nutritionism”, the importance of consuming “real food”, and shines light upon specific instances where “bad science” reveals beneficial health claims, soon after to be proven the complete opposite of what was originally claimed. Pollan concludes with a step-by-step guideline, giving readers no excuse to fall into the naïve category they started out in, preventing the possibility of being manipulated and mislead completely. Who doesn’t like being in control? An individual personally becomes responsible, when provided with every ooopportttuniiity to prevent a negative from happening, if choosing to take that for granted, in my mind it becomes doubly wrong. Continuing down the path society is going regarding the problems noted in “Unhappy Meals” in a sense, when given the opportunity to

,“In the case of nutritionism, the widely shared but unexamined assumption is that the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient.”. Given Pollan’s inference regarding the isolation of a nutrient, the attempt to encapsulate cancer-fighting antioxidant beta-carotene provided in the original state of a carrot. Revealing shocking results, proving opposite effect, once cancer fighting, turned into cancer causing, and damaging to DNA. What we fail to take into