Unhappy Meal Summary

Big questions always seem to surround food. The debate may start with simply asking how can we eat healthily, but eventually, the questions drift and somehow, we are left wondering, how can we feed the world. Working together, in a way that almost tag-teams, authors Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan establish that healthy eating surrounds the consumption of plants with the intent of being an active participant in the agriculture behind the foods we eat. Although Louise Fresco doesn’t reject their claim, she argues that fruits and vegetables are not going to end world hunger. Accordingly, she offers her own solution to this big picture question but ultimately agrees with the base of the others’ claim. Wendell Berry’s straightforward answer …show more content…
Pollan opens suggesting that people “Eat food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants.” Pollan quickly explains that “eat food” means to eat whole, fresh food. Whole, being the key term here, directs readers Pollan’s readers to look at food holistically. Often, Pollan critiques, food is broken down and judged solely on the nutrients as if they were individual components that acted the same way in any situation. This is not the case Pollan argues. Food cannot be broken up into micronutrients because the whole picture of what the food is becomes lost. Those micronutrients, which interact with one another cannot be adequately understood if they are standing alone. Furthermore, Pollan suggests that if these micronutrients are taken out of context, people trying to eat healthily will be misguided as they indulge in low-fat foods, which are “good,” but packed high with high-fructose corn syrup, which heavily processed and unhealthy. His second piece of advice is to not to overeat. This sentiment may feel like a given, but Pollan refers back to studies as well as his own personal experience before recognizing that people overeat, so much so that even during studies, the results are slightly skewed because people eat more than they openly admit. Finally, Pollan addresses what to eat specifically: plants. Although he does not focus heavily on this, Pollan makes clear his distaste for “ready to eat” meals, engineered with the individual nutrients and promising health amongst all of its colorful dyes and preservatives. Food, Pollan insists cannot be looked at in a vacuum as if it exists only ready to eat on the table or as its individual nutrients. Instead, and much like Berry, Pollan encourages that food should be seen as “less of a thing and more of a relationship.” Pollan defines health as an idea incredibly intertwined with the food web and biological signals. To actively