¶ … regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses," the author of this article assumes that consumer trends directly reflect health concerns. By juxtaposing hypothetical examples of health food stores and meat-based businesses, the author definitely draws a connection between regulating meat intake with health. Therefore, although the author does not explicitly say that people are less concerned about their health, she or he does imply that connection. The argument seems, on the surface, reasonable and appropriate. However, on closer examination, the evidence presented does not entirely substantiate the claim. The author draws a conclusion about consumers' concern for their health, when the trend he or she describes is more likely due to financial or other reasons.
The consumer trend might also be exactly that: a trend. Like fashion or other industries, food goes "in" and "out." By using the word "concern" in her thesis statement, the author of the article overestimates the emotional basis of the decision to buy cheese or meat. Because Heart's Delight sells a "wide selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content," the author assumes that this proliferation is due to a lack of concern with intake regulation. In fact, the opposite might be true. A store such as the hypothetical Heart's Delight, which "started selling organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours in the 1960's," is likely to market organic cheese. These organic cheeses do not contain hormones which are common in mass-marketed cheeses,...
Moreover, eating cheese in moderation is not a problem and the author fails to mention that sales of fatty cheeses and meats might have plummeted over the past decade. Instead, he or she leaps to the conclusion that because a health food store sells fatty cheese, that people are buying it in droves. Consumers who purchase fatty cheese from Heart's Delight are not necessarily unconcerned about their health. Also, the high quality or organic cheeses sold at Heart's Delight probably cost a great deal more than those sold at a regular supermarket. Therefore, financial considerations alone might deter people from purchasing (and eating) large amounts of fatty cheese. Financial considerations might cause people to regulate their intake of meats and cheeses. The author wrongly assumes that because Heart's Delight sells the cheese that "people are not as concerned…about regulating their intake." In fact, people might be just as concerned about intake regulation, but for a variety of reasons. To make his or her argument more plausible, the author probably should have researched actual sales of fatty cheeses to determine whether or not consumers were purchasing more or less of these products.
Ten years ago, the consumer public might have been inundated with media hype about the dangers of overeating red meat and fatty cheeses. Because that hype has waned, the trend might be not toward denial of meat and cheese, but toward acceptance of higher quality meat and cheese. When the author uses…
