Organic Foods dirty secret Heiry VesgaUniversity of Texas at El PasoEnglish 1312: Research and Critical Writing

Organic Foods dirty secretEvery U.S food market you go to, there will be that one delicious meal, chip, dessert, etc. That claims to be organic, less added sugar, and healthy enough to eat, but theres a trick to that, that everyone keeps falling for. The food industry knows we will immediately buy it because of its seducing labels, that some consumers dont even bother reading the nutrition facts. The reason why the trick works, is because if theyre going to add labels claiming low calorie, or 0 trans-fat, they will add increasing amount of other ingredients, like they do with whole grain crackers, they add a bunch load of sodium and other stuff, which is way worse, especially if youre trying to maintain a healthy diet. So they dont have to worry about, on why they put those kind of claims on the labels. Theres been cases on negative side effects done by these harmful ingredients, which consumers are now starting to be more attentive on what food is being placed in food markets and the quality of food being used in restaurants. Theres a chain of news articles circulating, its motivating and informing the public that we cant trust the food industry anymore. Its causing a positive impact in our diets because the food industry knows were on the lookout, so theyre adding better ingredients, using real organic foods, and using less harmful products. To provide useful information and get to the core of the main issue, I will be using the website SALON, an article by Lindsay Abrams, she is an assistant editor at Salon and a former writer and producer for the Atlantic's Health Channel. The other article Ill be using, is a well-known popular newspaper company, it will be the New York Times, an article by, Tara Parker-Pope. She is an author of books on health topics and a columnist for the New York Times, where she writes the Well blog. Both writers are familiar with their topics, its part of their background, so it makes the article worth the reading and credible.Audience and Purpose The specific audience Lindsay have in mind, is to reach out to those who are interested on learning more on what food labels to avoid and what kind of ingredients are lurking in their favorite meal. Its mostly to those who are in a diet or working out, trying to balance out their healthy life style. Even, if the main audience are them, the other kind of audience she can be trying to reach out is the curious one, who just for fun wants to know what theyre eating. The purpose of this article is to inform the readers the secrets that are hidden in the labels, she wants to expose the lies that the food industry has been allowing. By reading this article you can sense the disappointment she has on the distributor, for allowing these kind of meal to be released to the public. This article also tells us, how easy it is to lie and claim that the food is organic. Shes also persuading us not to buy anymore false claim organic food. To make sure theyre really organic because if we keep doing this, then more food marketers will start stocking in real organic food, since the sales of the false organic will go down. This article is to inform and increase awareness, they will learn what does burn caramel coloring does to you, the risk of it, and what kinds of food to avoid with other unpleasant ingredients that are hidden inside. Shes hoping to reach out to parents or any families out there that are trying so hard to keep their family safe and healthy, who lacks on food knowledge based on nutrition, that doesnt know where to begin and how to identify which is or not highly processed.The Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels is similar to the first article but the difference is that the first article was more detailed on explaining several facts about organic labels. In this article Tara is only informing us, which labels to watch out, the sub ingredients they use to make certain kinds of food and explaining which product are guilty for false claims and what they mean, like for instance made with whole grains, or strengthens your immune system. Shes trying to reach out to healthy dieters, who only buy organic foods from their local market, or parents who feeds their kids with organic foods. This article is informative and persuading because by finding out which product endorses false labels, it persuades us to look for something else that are actually healthy and organic. This article is clear and precise with its vocabulary, so whoever reads this shouldnt have a problem understanding it.Rhetorical IssuesThe salon page doesnt seem like it has any credibility because its not a well-known page, theres no way on finding out, if its a magazine company, Newspaper Company, or a blog page, but you could say it has little credibility because of the author, since she produces and writes for her health channel. What also makes this page credible is the fact that her references is from a credible website, like the USDA, NY Times, and FDA, but she also conducted her own research with an unknown author, who doesnt have any specialties with food, so that takes away some credibility. The Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels have credibility because its a well-known popular newspaper company, which they get to the bottom of their research and authors who are well known with their topic only gets chosen for that certain article. Tara Parker-Pope is an author for healthy book topics but it doesnt mean shes an expertise, so we cant fully trust her either. Besides all the differences in these two web sites, what they share is the emotion they create to the audience, this article is most likely to cause trust issues and disgust, knowing theyre consuming all that bad ingredients, and theyll be worry too because we dont know if we already developed the negative side effects, its known to cause by digesting unhealthy ingredients to our body. What theyre also in common is, how informative they are with the audience, they stick with the lies of organic labels, and they share the same kind of audience. Theyre both trying to increase awareness.EthosLets begin with the Salon website, it may seem as a credible page, it covers all sorts of variety topics, they have their own journalist whose well known with healthy topics, and millions of supporting readers, but all of this will not pass as a credible page because even though this page has supporting fans, its still not a well-known website to use for a school related project, unlike New York Times, is a well know credible page and a major company. The second reason, is Lindsay Abrams sources comes from Peter Laufer an independent journalist, broadcaster and documentary filmmaker. That sounds great but that has nothing to do with falsity of organic food labels. Specialized in news media or journalist, will help you write a successful article about food labels, but it doesnt mean you have any expertise on the subject. Lindsay Abrams did right on conducting her own research on credible pages like the New York Times and USDA, so that makes the article credible and what helps makes it even more credible is that unlike Peter Laufer, shes a producer for The Atlantic's Health Channel. The New York Times, it is a credible news company, its very well-known, theres a list of all the employees, board of directors, and executives names of who does what and their job description, and the author is an author of books for healthy topics and a New York Time columnist for well blog, the only problem is that her sources are not useful, because it cant no longer be found. The only comparison there is with these two websites, is that they both cover all sorts of topics and the journalist are familiar with their topic.Pathos The New York Times article provides a list of claims thats been known to be on food labels, by doing this the audience will now be fully aware and more precautious before purchasing a food item. This may cause hopelessness, since most food items always claim to do something, but now that theyre aware which food labels to watch out and which are the companies that allows the falsity of claims on labels, the audience will maybe be motivated to pursue on its healthy lifestyle path, on reading the labels and making sure if its something their body can consume. With the Salon page article its answering your daily question about how the food industry works. The author answers a few questions, what the audience would like to know and adds her own primary source, an interview she has done. In the beginning of the page shes confirming the research she has done, this gives some sort of trust to the audience, because it informs us, how she got her information, it also gives an understanding on why buyers choose organic or conventional. After the first page, the rest of the article are questions being answered for those who are interested. The questions may anger some readers, since it explains how the USDA works and its lack on certifying foods and labels and also how easy it is for a crook to fool anyone by making us believe its organic. It may motivate the audience to do something by convincing USDA on how they certified labels, by making stricter rules.Logos New York Times have a few articles and websites bolded and cited, used to back up her facts, it would be great if she had at least one picture to illustrate some of the labels or food products we need to avoid because some of the bolded references, wont display the webpage because its been either taken down or moved. She explains her facts real well, but lacks on the visual interpretation. The article in the Salon page, Lindsay illustrated an image of a frozen food ready to eat, with a label presenting hundred percent organic. This image is a great use for her article, since shes explaining about which labels we have to be aware. This image supports everything she has talked about in her article, unlike the image in New York Times with the mom and her daughter grocery shopping, it has nothing to do with her topic, which is Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels.Structure and DeliveryThe Organics dirty secret label in the Salon page is organized, everything is in order, and shes not jumping to different topics, or changing them. The only thing, I would consider faulty is the style and font she chose for her article because the letters are too small and theyre not spaced out, compared to Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels, its spaced out, so its easier to follow along and not skip sentences, and she chose the right font and style for her article which will attract more viewers. Structures, styles, color, font, etc. Is what the readers first thing looks at, it represents and determines if the article is going to be worth the reading, and Lindsay also needs to keep her article short for Organics dirty secret, only mention important information regarding your topic.ConclusionPretty much both articles delivered their main point of view well, they were organized, and some of their references were credible which means we can rely on the two articles. Lindsay article on Organics dirty secret, couldve been better if she wouldve done the research on her own, instead of depending on journalist Peter Laufer, since hes not a reliable person to depend on because the topic doesnt have to do with anything he specializes in, but overall she did not miss out on any detail and covered most of the important questions, readers may ask. Taras article on Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels, was enjoyable to read, but she should add more images on some of the paragraph for the audience to get a better understanding on which food products shes referring to and where to locate some of the things on the nutrition box.

References Abrams, L. (2014, Jul 19). Organic foods dirty secret: What the seductive label fails to tell you. Retrieved from Salon: http://www.salon.com

Parker-Pope, T. (2010, January 28). Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels. Retrieved from The New York Times : http://well.blogs.nytimes.com