William Jensen

Professor Cavender

RWS 280 section 19

February 11, 2013

Word count: 1775

Politics, Food, and corn: A recipe for change?

Americans today are no strangers to stretching every dollar earned in an attempt to live the American dream. Most people work long hours and eat on the fly with very little thought to what, or where, the food they have purchased came from. The reason food is so inexpensive has not been a concern to the average American, but the article written by Michael Pollan “The Food Movement Rising” attempts to convince the people that it is time to remove the blinders and take an accounting of the situation that America finds itself in. With obesity at epic proportions, and preventable diseases like
Pollan then establishes that “ perhaps the food movement’s strongest claim on public attention today is the fact that the American diet of highly processed food laced with added fats and sugars is responsible for the epidemic of chronic diseases that threatens to bankrupt the health care system” and that “ the health care crisis cannot be addressed without addressing the catastrophe of the American diet, and that the diet is the direct result […] of the way that our agriculture and food industries have been organized” (Par. 15). The author substantiates his claim by providing support with evidence taken from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) who estimates that “ fully three quarters of US health care spending goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which are preventable and linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and a third of all cancers.” (Par. 15). With the death tolls rising each year from these diseases, the author is assuming that most Americans will have been touched by these diseases to some degree, and will react emotional for the lack of effort on the administrative side to correct the problems. To amplify this emotional response Pollan points out that Michelle Obama’s “lets move” campaign for childhood obesity is the only action being taken by the current administration, and despite her best efforts President Barack Obama