You Are What You Grow Analysis

Michael Pollan’s article “You Are What You Grow” is a captivating article on the food industry and how it is supporting unhealthy food production to the public, causing obesity in the United States. The main culprit of this is the farm bill. The farm bill sets rules for the food system to follow and chooses which crops get highly supported in production. These crops are almost never the healthy, fresh crops.
Pollan backs up his main point on this growing rate of obesity by talking about an “obesity researcher” named Adam Drewnowski who went into a grocery store and realized that the cheaper options for food in the grocery store were the more unhealthy choice. Pollan states that “Drewnowski found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.” This might cause people, especially people on a budget, to gravitate towards the unhealthy option because it is the cheaper option. For many years, the farm bill supports farmers to grow harmful substances such as fats, rice, cotton, soybeans, and wheat. These crops are not necessarily unhealthy …show more content…
Pollan provides detailed information and statistics to back up what he is saying. When Pollan talks about Drewnowski and his observations he made while shopping in a grocery store, that grabbed my attention the most. When I go grocery shopping, the food that is highly advertised or provided at lower costs is not the best. Personally, I have noticed that the healthier food options or the organic food options in the stores by the area that I live rarely go on sale or have price markdowns. I would enjoy seeing the farm bill get changed in a way that would help the environment and the people living in it, providing healthy and fresh food for a cheaper