I want to mention this passage because it does not only talks about “food” and “food industry” but also involves the concept of “economics” and “self-control”.

“The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate”, which is written by Marion Nestle, talks about the operational methods of food company and supermarkets. She shows us the fact that supermarkets use different types of trick to attract people to buy more in order to maximize their profits. They never care about the health problem of their customer because they think if you eat too much it is your problem. Through this article, I know that food can involve a lot of things like business trade, psychological research, responsibility and self-control. After I read this passage, I write a short essay to express my attitude towards food market, which is totally different from the attitude of the original author. This reading is significant for me because it stimulates my thoughts and makes me realize that “food” can involve a lot of things.  

Marion Nestle claims that “Food retailers argue that if you eat too much it is your problem, not theirs. But they are in the business of encouraging you to buy more food, not less.” From this quote, we easily see that the author has a strong negative attitude towards food company and supermarkets. But in my opinion, I don’t think it’s immoral for supermarkets to have their own tactics to maximize the profit instead of caring a lot about the health of all customers. As an Economics and Psychology major students, I think every market should find their equilibrium and maximize its profit. If supermarkets consider the health of all customers, they will not only reduce the profit but also hire less and less capital and labor, and it will cause a higher unemployment rate and make the whole nation become more and more recessive.

On the other side, I think people have the responsibility to take care about their own diet and health. They have no reason to blame the supermarkets since the health is their own business. I believe that if and only if people can recognize the importance of their health, they can resist the seduction of different tactics and tasty but unhealthy food. For example, we can write down what we want to buy before we go to the supermarkets and bring this shopping list to the supermarket and stick to it. People have the power to control themselves instead of being attracted to different types of trick.