Food Safety is the Premise

“We are a nation that has always tried to eat a perfect diet, but we have always failed. So why do we continue to ask the ‘What to eat?’ question so often and so hard? ” (Dupuis 11). Both and Dupuis and Pollan propose the question “what to eat” in their articles and then answer the question in a history perspective and a scientific perspective. In Melanie Dupuis’s article, A Brief History of Food Advice in America, she introduces angles were present during the birth of American food advice. She also talks about the emergence of germs, calories, and vitamins, as the new truths about eating in the American history. The author considers the issues of injustice and inequality; however, she does not think that diet would become a solution to resolve the social problems. Moreover, in Michael Pollan’s essay, Unhappy Meals, he tries to medicalize the diet problem through nutritionism. He gives people nine suggestions about what to eat. For instance, the emphasis of nutrition and avoid food which contains unfamiliar, unpronounceable, and more than five food additives.

Both of them mention the issues of food nutrition and safety. In my eyes, there is a close contact between food nutrition and food safety. Without the guarantee of food safety, the emphasis of calorie, vitamin, and nutrition of food will become meaningless. Dupuis states that Americans always try to eat a perfect or nutrition standard meal, but have always failed. Similarly, the same situation has happened in China. China is the nation in which people attach the great importance to eating. However, there are a lot issues about food safety has happened in China recently. From chemical additives in powdered milk to toxic capsule, food safety issues have aroused panic in the society. People scare of the food additives but they do not know how to prevent themselves from unsafe food. With the trend of food choices are growing more and more diversity, Pollan’s article gives people several useful suggestions about what to eat. Even thought Dupuis thinks that social problems cannot be resolved through diet, I believe it depends on the level of the importance of diet among different countries. Chinese people view food as the primary need from of old, thus, it is important to increase the social stability and solidarity through resolving the food safety issues.