9 benefits of Morning Workouts

DILLEMA IN THE NATION’S CULTURE OF FOOD

What I found most interesting in the third part of Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma is the importance of food culture and people’s consciousness of the kind of foods they eat. Pollan discusses how cultural values surrounding food can help omnivores in deciding what kinds of foods they can eat and those they cannot. I think this could b a way to confront and overcome the omnivore’s dilemma. He also mentions the issue of being aware and thinking about what one actually eats. This is also another way in which the dilemma can be confronted, because the more one is aware of the foods they are eating the easier and better their choices of what they will eat.

Talking about America’s eating disorder, he noted that it seems like “our eating tends to grow more tortured as our culture’s power to manage our relationship to food weakens.” (298) Food is one of the main components that define a culture and also one of the ways to avoid the trouble of having to wonder what one will eat. Just like the increasing cultural diversity, there exists a lot of different kinds of foods in America, brought in by immigrants. Having so much food options available means that people are not close to the source of their foods anymore and most of them don’t even know what the food consists of or the process through which it is obtained. The changes in the way families eat has also contributed to the nation’s eating disorder. This has affected the “American way of eating” in that it cannot really be defined or even attained no matter how they try. Unlike other countries who have a stable cuisine or staple food. America has a large variety of foods, which can be overwhelming for a conscious consumer. The nation’s eating habits have been changing frequently and they no longer have what Pollan calls the “archaic criteria as taste and tradition to guide them in their food selection.”(300) The nation basically lacks a strong culture to set boundaries and rules on what or how to eat. The dilemma isn’t necessarily the unhealthy foods but rather the attitude, appetites and rules regarding the way the food is eaten (food culture). Pollan shows this by comparing the American culture to the French culture who although eat a lot of unhealthy foods rarely suffer from diet related problems. He notes the difference in the food portions, communal meals and limit on snacking between meals. Pollan here suggested that such a strong and strict culture of food is more likely to negotiate he omnivore’s dilemma, which this nations clearly lacks.

As if this lack of a stable cuisine is not enough, the American food market has also increased the dilemma by taking this opportunity to exploit its consumers. Because the food industry “thrives on dietary instability” they tend to “exacerbate” the problem through their diet and food fads. This leaves the consumer helpless and in an even deeper dilemma as they are swayed from false advertising to misleading nutritional information. This has changed and undermined the food culture in that people do not rely on the “accumulated wisdom of a cuisine, or even the wisdom of our senses” but rather they rely on advise from “expert opinion, advertising, government food pyramids, and diet books”(302) which of course are not really reliable in a nation that thrives mainly on capitalism.