English B1A CLASS PACK - Bakersfield College

1. Why is nutrition science difficult (62)?In Defense of Foodp. 61-812. Pollan explains that “Scientific reductionism… can mislead us… especially when appliedto something as complex, on the one side, as food and on the other as a human eater” (62-63). What does he mean?3. What does Pollan say is the “great thing about eating foods as compared with nutrients”(66)?4. Pollan calls attention to the error of studying “the food out of context of the diet” (66).What is he talking about? (See also p. 67.)5. What are the weaknesses associated with food frequency questionnaires (75-77)?6. Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, asked a group of Americansthe following question: “Assume you are alone on a desert island for one year and youcan have water and one other food. Pick the food that you think would be best for yourhealth” (qtd. in Pollan 79). What two foods of the choices given (corn, alfalfa sprouts,hot dogs, spinach, peaches, bananas, milk chocolate) “would in fact best supportsurvival” (80)? What does that mean? Why are they not the foods most people surveyedwould have chosen?50