The Pleasure of Eating by Wendell Berry - Essay Example

Text Analysis Essay Introduction The Pleasure of Eating is a chapter of the book, What are People for? and written by Wendell Berry in the year 1990 and published by North Point Press. It is a book focusing on human health, and it is necessary for today’s society more than it was twenty-four years ago. City people should eat responsibly according to Berry. Berry wants readers to discover the pleasure of eating because he assumes that eating is an act that begins with planting of fruits and vegetables. Berry feels consumers have lost touch with the importance of food, and he tries to bring people closer to it. For example, urban dwellers mostly rely on fast food and processed food because they find it easier and faster. So what is the importance of food and do people eat with pleasure? Analysis People are supposed to rediscover the pleasure of eating as the author claims. Then how is this possible? The question, of finding pleasure in what you eat, is what Berry answers in his book. Berry illustrates the pleasure of eating by empowering consumers to be involved in agriculture and the food they eat. Being an active participant in deciding the kind of food to eat and how it is production takes place makes the consumer more knowledgeable. Knowledge, as we know equals power and freedom of choice as passive consumers do not enjoy the freedom of choosing between healthy foods and the unhealthy foods. Eating healthy makes one feel energetic, and end up appreciating food. Berry’s purpose in his book, Pleasure of Eating is to make the audience find pleasure in eating healthy meals. Most city people are passive participants when it comes to deciding the food they eat. Berry tries to stop this by offering solutions to the consumer on the choice of food they consume. He asks, “ How do you get out of this problem?”, is an illustration to the audience to finding the solution to the unhealthy eating problem. The target audience of the author is the passive, uncritical and dependent person who does not care about food production. Food production has been industrialized, and a few individuals get in contact with the production directly. The patron of the food production thought that it was helping the consumer by making their work easier. The food production industries have tried so hard to convince consumers that processed food is what they need because it is easier that way. The industries will grow and prepare your food for you and even beg you to eat it. The industries only do this because they are benefiting from it. They see the money they get from consumers, and they think of different ideas of forcing the food down to the consumers. According to Berry, his description of the industries greediness is not an exaggeration. The consumers become a victim when they cannot differentiate between the food they eat and the land where it grows. The people should not focus on the land as a property instead of the farm where their food grows. At the end of the reading, Berry wants readers to be different when deciding the food they consume. Consumers should participate more in food production. People with a backyard or even a porch should use it as a kitchen garden. Fresh food from the garden brings a good energy to the backyard. One can make fertilizer from the food and flower decay in the garden. People should prepare their food because it is a healthy and cheap way of food consumption. In addition, people should find out where the food, they prepare are produced, deal with local producer or farmer if there is one near and learn the economy of farming. Finally, Berry tells the reader to learn about agriculture and the food species you consume. The focus of the text is on healthy eating. Berry, who apart from being a writer is also a farmer, gives us tips on being healthy and making our food. Berry talks about the importance of owning a home garden at the backyard. Having a home garden would help in planting fruits and vegetables, which are useful for regular home meals. The book also talks about processed foods and warns us of the risks of eating them. Processed foods shorten one’s life according to studies. Berry organizes the text in a manner that makes the reader want to start farming. First, Berry makes us see how the food production industries do not care about our health but their pockets. Then, he gives us a solution by encouraging farming. Berry finishes off by making sure we have the pleasure of eating. People who know where the food, they consume comes from pleasure in eating. There is nothing more pleasurable when it comes to eating than eating food from your garden. The whole book informed us of the importance and pleasure of eating food from the garden. The ecological benefits, of producing own food, as well as one’s health are given as benefits of going green. The ecological benefits being, plants and animals balance it out to survive, and growing plants in the backyard help clean the air. The book was persuasive enough, and the best part was when Berry gives us advices and tips on gardening. They include; grow your own food, prepare it yourself and learn the origin of food you are eating if bought in a market. The tips are worth living by if one has a garden. Being an urban consumer does not mean one cannot live healthily. The decision of where the food comes from should be that of the consumer, and he or she needs to make a decision. Berry is an author who is knowledgeable when it comes to farming. He is a farmer who believes locally purchased or food grown in the home garden is the best kind of food. At the beginning of the book, Berry comes out as angry. He is mad at urban dwellers for being passive when it came to the kind of food they consumed. “Most urban shoppers would tell you that food is produced on farms. But most of them do not know what farms, or what kinds of farms, or where the farms are, or what knowledge or skills are involved in farming”. Food processors have brainwashed people from urban areas to believing it is okay to eat processed food. The food processing industries focus on how profitable the industry will be regardless of who gets affected. Berry is angry at the industries and thinks if they could, they would shove food into peoples throat for a profit. Berry, however, becomes friendlier and gives the reader ways to become a small - scale farmer as long as you have a garden. The tips from the book would help the consumer in being mindful of their health. Being economic is also handled by the advices given. Berry helps the reader to notice how cheap growing your food would be. Growing food and preparing it yourself is cheaper than buying from the market. Berry’s main focus is for the reader to realize the pleasure that comes from eating fresh food and vegetables. He was able to achieve this as the reader now notices how healthy living could be easy and fulfilling. The Pleasure of Eating meaning comes out as Berry can convince the reader to become a farmer. Berry’s tone moves from angry to persuasive, and compelling throughout the text. Berry uses informal language when writing to be able to connect with the reader more. Berry uses informal language to make the reader loosen up and find the pleasure in farming. It also makes understanding the conversation easier. The author used no specialized vocabulary throughout the text. Berry describes how brutal the food production companies are. “The food is produced by any means or any shortcut that will increase profits”. The farming tips from the book gave me ideas on how to make a backyard useful. How one can turn decay flowers and plants into fertilizer were on my mind. Berry talks about the energy from the farm to the home and this gives me ideas on how beautiful, the air would feel if I had my garden. Images, of being able to take food from the garden straight to the kitchen make one think about healthy living despite being an urban dweller. The pleasure, of eating clean, fresh food from the garden makes images run in my mind of how wonderful it would be eating homemade food. Berry captures the reader’s attention by being descriptive, and this makes the reader want to practice farming. It also makes it hard to forget the message passed. Berry has ethics and this appears on his principles concerning food production and consumption. He appeals to the readers emotionally by being concerned about how consumers ignore where their food is coming from. He urges the consumers to be more involved when it comes to the food they eat. It seems illogical for urban dwellers do farming, but if one owns a backyard, that should be his/her kitchen garden. Conclusion Berry talks about healthy eating in the text. He convinces the reader that once one starts eating healthy, he for she finds pleasure in it. In the process, you appreciate the food more, which was once a living thing. One can recognize the vegetables and fruits also once you learn how to grow and prepare them for a meal. Berry made us understand the importance of ecosystems and how to maintain a fresh and clean environment by producing one’s food. The wonder of how plants survive and thrive in the sun and how in turn we survive is amazing. Work Cited Berry, Wendell. “The Pleasures of Eating” from What Are People For? Gettysburg: North Point Press. 1990. Print. Read More