Why Salad Is Overrated Rhetorical Analysis

Although salad may be seen as a healthy alternative, Tamar Haspel’s goal in “Why salad is overrated” is to report that lettuce is more harmful than beneficial, in ways that are unhealthy and wasteful. Haspel informs the audience that the resources needed to process the vegetables cost more than the vegetables itself; she also explains why lettuce is overvalued, giving details to the nutrition density, calorie count, and shipment of the vegetable. She wants the audience to agree and recognize that salad vegetables causes more problems than benefits, and implies that she wants the audience to notify others to change their diet from iceberg lettuce, and similar vegetables, to something more nutritious. Haspel uses a superior-to-inferior relationship to speak to the audience, informing them of what’s wrong with eating salad, by teaching the audience about her …show more content…
She presents statistics in paragraph 18 from the Center for Disease Control when stating, “…green leafies accounted for 22 percent of all food-borne illnesses from 1998-2008,” this gives additional support for how these certain vegetables have cause poor health. The data from the statistics helps to show the real size of the problem with leafy vegetables, and influences the audience to avoid salad vegetables that may give them illnesses. In addition, Haspel draws on the value of being environmentally friendly, and the importance of taking care of our planet. She illustrates in paragraph 2 how salad “… occupies precious crop acreage, requires fossil fuels to be shipped, refrigerated, around the world, and adds nothing but crunch to the plate”; this statement shows that processing salad creates a burden on the environment with its damaging effects, appealing to the value of taking care of our planet. If the audience does not eat salad, then they would be benefiting the planet—furthering Haspel’s argument to stop eating salad