
HOOK. In the essay “Attention Whole Food Shoppers” Robert Paarlberg argues that the organic food trend that is happening in America is causing global issues. Paarlberg is a professor at Wellesley College and is doing research that is focused on environmental policy and agricultural technology. His primary use of logic is an attempt to inform and encourage his audience to take action on the issue that the organic trend is causing. Paarlberg effectively achieves his purpose of bringing light to the issues of the organic food trend and eliminating global deprivation through fact based arguments, formal style and the relevancy of the issue.

The main purpose of Paarlberg’s essay is to expose the issues with the organic food trend and the want to solve world hunger through eco-friendly foods. The reality he presents is that this trend does not benefit anyone. He presents this reality in broken down parts. His use of sub headings helps guide the reader through is argument by giving main idea titles before each paragraph or two. Since Paarlberg presents a lot of information and facts it helps organize the flow of the essay instead of just moving from one topic to the next with no warning. The tone Paarlberg uses suggests that the reader is an activist for the organic food trend and he is attempting to change the mind of the organic food activist to the conventional food side of the argument. This is effective in is argument because he gets to his point very quickly like when in his first paragraph he says “. . . the hope that we can help others by changing our shopping and eating habits is being widely oversold to Western consumers” (382). Paarlberg is clear from the start about what the purpose of the essay is and has an assertive tone to show the severity of the issue. 

Along with an effective tone, the author also uses many facts based evidence to support his argument. Throughout the essay Paarlberg presents many statistics like “India’s rural poverty rate fell from 60 percent [in 1975] to 27 percent today” (384). Using statistics gives advantages to his argument because they are proven facts backed up by scientific research. The author uses ethical reasoning when he talks about the safety of the food. Paarlberg talks about E. coli and how contamination is going down. He also talks about food hospitalization in America and claims that it is no fault of contamination but of how the food is prepared. He also brings up the point that organic foods aren’t that different for the consumer. He uses evidence from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition to state that there is little to no nutritional advantage of eating organic food over conventional food. This is effective because his audience will care about their food being safe to eat. The author also draws on his audience’s emotions in a subtle way. Throughout the essay Paarlberg talks about food deprived regions of the world. By writing about how “850 million people in poor countries were chronically undernourished before the 2008 price spike” (382), the author tries to pull sympathy from his audience. Paarlberg continuously mentions the deprived people Africa and South Asia to make his audience feel bad for them and as a result do something to help resolve the issue at hand. 

This essay was published in 2010 which was when the organic food trend started to take off. This essay was relevant in 2010 because it was published right after all the studies that he talks about in the essay were completed. This essay continues to be relevant today because global deprivation continues to be a growing problem. The audience of the essay are people who are for and encourage the organic food trend to help stop deprivation and the goal of the essay was to convince the audience that modern agricultural technology is what will help solve food deprivation in today’s society. The growing population of organic foodies makes the essays purpose of solving the issue of global deprivation. 

Through Robert Paarlberg’s research of international and environmental food policy and agricultural technology he is able to construct a well-organized essay through the structure and layout of the essay. He is able to get and keep the reader’s attention though fact based argument, emotion and ethical reasoning. Lastly, through is tone and constant awareness of his audience he is able to build an argument that effectively gets his purpose across and encourages a change in the organic trend issue.       