The Power of Logical Appeals
Meet Micheal Pollan
Michael Pollan is considered, to many, the front runner for food health. Any YouTube video involving him will have a comment along the lines of “Michael Pollan changed my life” or “Michael Pollan changed the way I eat”. Netflix has also given him a show based on his book “Cooked”. As you can already see he is considered an authoritative figure in food health by many, and for good reason. In his article “Unhappy Meals”, a summary of his book “The Omnivores Dilemma”, he uses various appeals to inform his audience about the food industry and Nutritionism. He uses rhetorical appeals such as pathos and ethos, but his most effective and frequent appeal comes in the form of logical appeals.
Pollan's Message
Pollan starts his article “Unhappy Meals” with his conclusion that people should “eat food, less food, mostly plants”. This sounds simple enough, but he explains that the solution is a little more complicated than that. He blames the food industry and food scientists for complicating what can be considered food; while leaving some of the blame on consumers.
Pollan explains that foods are now being defined and identified by the nutrients they carry. He argues that this can complicate what the consumer sees as “food” at the supermarket. Instead of food, we now have these “food like” substances made up of nutrients. The nutrients that these foods are made up of are nutrients that are either addicting, cheap, or nonperishable for convenience and pleasure purposes. Scientists have even altered the nutrients that the food contains, so that the food carries more of the “beneficial” nutrients and less of the “bad” nutrients. However, Pollan argues that nutritionist have been wrong in what is considered “beneficial” and “bad” many times. It was first believed that macronutrients were all humans needed to stay nourished; scientists later found that a carbohydrate, fat, and protein diet is not enough. We now know that those macronutrients in large quantity can be bad for us. Scientists also found that vitamins were not sufficient enough, which were believed to be all we needed to add alongside macronutrients.
Pollan argues that food is too complicated to study, there is too much going on in food that is invisible to us. Pollan offers a solution to simplify food health for the average consumer. His solution is to stop thinking about food as the nutrients that make up the food; instead people should focus on buying whole foods; generally, food with less than 5 listed ingredients.
The Food Movement
The timing of Pollans writings is important because there has been a peeked interest in food health in recent years. Since the 90’s, consumers have been wanting to see where their food was coming from and how it is being produced. Pollan credits this to multiple fast food safety scandals, and rising obesity and heart disease rates. Some examples of fast food safety scandals include E. coli outbreak from Jack in the Box (1993) and Mad Cow Disease. In 2009 a famous documentary, Food Inc. (which Pollan makes an appearance in), was released which highlighted the way farm animals were being raised and treated. On the issue of obesity and heart, there is a famous documentary released in 2004 called “Supersize Me” which focused on the influence that fast food has on a person’s health (Supersize Me). The documentary showed what eating nothing but McDonalds for a month could do to the human body. Even the former first lady, Michelle Obama, has been trying to combat childhood obesity by starting the “Let’s Move!” movement, which promotes a healthy diet and active lifestyle. Interest in food has grown in the recent years and Michael Pollan hopes to persuade people to change the way they consume food.
Why is Pollans Argument Effective?
To help persuade people, Pollan uses emotional, logical, and authoritative appeals. As I stated earlier, Pollan is a famous person in the food health community. He has appeared on various television interviews, including The Oprah Winfrey Show and the documentary Food Inc. He is well known for his writing in connecting human’s interaction with nature. His name itself carries a strong ethos argument.
Pollan gives a solution that is not too detailed or affirmative. This is a good use of pathos; Pollan gives the audience a degree of freedom in the diet they choose. This helps in not alienating his audience. Instead of saying meat is bad and should never be consumed, he argues meat is not deadly but you should reduce the consumption of meat and increase plant intake. He also suggests that people should enjoy their food and think of its consumption as a cultural relationship; this approach offers a sense of relief and enjoyment in food consumption like the French.
Although, His most effective persuasion tactic comes in the form of logos; he has more logical appeals throughout all his arguments than any other form of persuasion. Pollan refers to a lot of events in human history, studies, and science to get his point across to the audience. One example of an event is when nutritionists suggested that a switch to a low-fat diet did not help in the obesity or heart disease problem, in fact, people only got fatter on this new low-fat diet. He explains that people became fatter because fat was replaced with carbohydrates. Also, people never stopped their consumption of fat but instead increased their intake of carbohydrates. Consumers intake of carbohydrates increased because they felt safe eating it if it didn’t have fat.
Pollan gives an example of a study conducted by the Woman’s Health Initiative, where it was found that low-fat diet does not cut health risks. He claims the study was flawed because the focus was on fat and not a particular food. There were also no distinctions between fats since they were not known yet, due to not being on the scientific scope. The use of this study helps him strongly argue his point that nutritionists have been wrong in the past and that food needs to be simplified; and that studies like the Women’s Health Initiative have not been helpful in food health.
Pollans use of logos is effective because it provides non-debatable examples that appeals to the readers intellect. He gives studies and events in history to help prove that scientists are not always right, and as people we may be better off not leaving the decisions on health diet to food scientists. As a logical person, the arguments that included facts and examples stood out the most to me. I feel when trying to disprove food scientist it is best to back up the argument with facts, which is exactly what Pollan does throughout the article. His arguments are important for several reasons:
1.) He has helped in educating the public on healty eating which can bring about changed in the food industry.
2.) He emphasizes the importance of whole foods with few ingredients and avoidance of ultra processed food by arguing that nutritionists have been wrong in deciding what kind of diets we should follow.
3.) He informs people about what to look for in the grocery store and what to avoid.
One way of avoiding hyper processed foods is by cooking your own meals. I want to emphasize the importance of cooking your own meals, even on a busy schedule. The meals you cook do not need to be expensive, "health foods". Cooking was the way I, as well as many other people, have been raised. As a kid my mother never wanted us to eat fast food because it was cheaper to cook as well as healthier. She went as far as squeezing the grease out of whatever was cooked in oil(fries, bacon, etc.). By cooking you naturally use less salt, sugar, oil then processed or fast food would.