Dieting: Huge Conspiracy?

I found this essay to be very interesting because the author dove right into a problem that is not very obvious, the relation between Nutrition and poor Health. Modern medicine and numerous dieting pills and supplements have successfully masked the real problem of our diets – the “super” nutritious foods that we eat daily. The author makes a strong argument because he established the history of the nutrition movement. At first I thought I was reading his argument wrong when he claimed that isolated nutrients were the root of the problem. We’re so used to going to the supermarket and buying cereals that boldly claim 50% MORE CALCIUM, or orange juice brands laced with vitamin C without actually considering the implications of these nutrients. Some of us may know exactly what these nutrients “theoretically” are supposed to do, but in reality, the majority of people focus on these items because they look healthy. Pollan addresses the issue of these isolated nutrients well, showing that the supposed benefits of these nutrients are not necessarily guaranteed, but they are just what the scientists expect to happen. Like Pollan said, science is sometimes based around the notion that once things are broken down they can be better understood. Unfortunately, like Pollan explained, the rules of understanding science are not compatible with diet. His theory of interconnectedness and the webbing structure of foods, digestion and genetics seems to be much more plausible than the current “isolated variable” theory of scientists.
Pollan ended his essay well, proposing several ways for you to gain control of your diet. The only idea I felt he could have expanded more upon was the idea of the nutrition system being beneficial to capitalism and vice versa. If everyone ate well, there would not be as many dieting pills and schemes in the market. Therefore these schemes and pills don’t attack the root of the problem; they skim the surface to enable more productivity.