Turn on the television and commercials full of fit people will promise you that following the latest diet will have you ready for swimsuit season in just days. Many of these types of advertisements are served by celebrities without any nutrition or exercise credentials, and the public believes these claims by spending $40 billion a year on diet products. Unfortunately, these methods don't work, and Americans are getting older and suffering from more weight- and diet-related diseases, despite all these healthy diets being offered. Often the research that supports these fad diets is sponsored by the same companies that will sell these diet products, leaving many consumers perplexed as to what a healthy diet is. Michael Pollan, author of the essay “Escape the Western Diet,” opposes these fad diets and argues that the Western diet is causing the obesity epidemic and related disease processes. Pollan argues that experts promoting these diets cannot agree on what is or isn't healthy and will become entrenched in their beliefs at the risk of the everyday consumer. Pollan states in his essay, “while everyone agrees that the wave of refined carbohydrates has significantly pushed