What You Eat Is Your Business Analysis

Everyone has to eat in order to survive. But where and what are most Americans eating now? In “Against Meat” by Jonathan Safran Foer and “What You Eat Is Your Business” by Radley Balko, the authors try to answer these simple questions. Gone are the days of sitting down with the whole family to a large table laden with food. In today’s world most people are choosing convenience and time saving ways of getting food to the traditional family sit down meal. What does this leave us with? Populations with growing waste bands and many healthy problems. Is it possible to return to the old time of home cooked, sit-down meals with the whole family or are we too far gone down the fast-food rabbit hole? Both Foer and Balko stand for a personal responsibility when it comes to people’s choices about their food. Foer, though has a much more forgiving attitude than Balko. It is perhaps this forgiveness that makes his article more appealing and persuasive when read. In his article, “Against Meat”, …show more content…
He does use himself as an example, but in a sarcastic and clipped way instead of an open and honest one. “Your heart attack drives up the cost of my premiums and office visits. And if the government is paying for my anti-cholesterol medication, what incentive is there for me to put down the cheeseburger?” (Balko, 467). This negative tone, once again sets his audience on the defense. No one enjoys hearing how they have hurt others, especially people they do not know, so throwing these accusations in the face of his audience hurts even his supporters. He bumbles on by telling us, “This collective ownership of private health then paves the way for even more federal restrictions on consumer choice and civil liberties” (468). He gives no illustration for this outside of claiming the options inside supermarkets would change. Balko’s attacks on his readers do little to endear him to them; instead he continues to fan the