Jack Kuhne

Professor Dorhauer

English 1023

16 June 2024

Rhetorical Devices In “A Delicious Revolution”

“The average student in the United States receives less than eight hours of nutrition

education each school year, yet evidence shows that good nutrition and healthy habits benefit

many aspects of a child’s life.” says Trina Robertson in her article “Nutrition Education in

Schools Supports Health” (paragraph 3). Teaching our kids, the future of our country, is an

important task, but what should they be learning about? With unhealthy fast food being a readily

available option, Alice Waters talks about why nutrition education in school and having a healthy

diet is as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic in her article “Delicious Revolution”.

Waters uses rhetorical devices such as the appeal to emotions (pathos), figurative language,

repetition, and the appeal to reason (logos) to convince readers that teaching children how to eat

healthy and grow their own food should be a priority in schools.

In this persuasive article, “A Delicious Revolution”, Alice Waters explains her reasoning

behind the importance of teaching school kids about food and nutrition. She teaches and explains

the benefits of implementing food nutrition in schools. She even recounts her personal

experience of seeing the reward food education and growing your own food had on the students

of Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

 In her article, Waters uses the appeal to emotions to reinforce her point to parents and

schools, that nutrition education as well as how to eat healthily should be taught in schools. “I've

seen all this happen at The Edible Schoolyard Garden at Martin Luther King Middle School in

Berkeley. I've seen the kids sitting around the picnic tables in the schoolyard, eating salads

they've grown themselves with the most polite manners. They want these rituals of the table.

They like them.” In this quote, Waters talks about how she’s seen children being happy,

interacting with one another, and enjoying the food they grew at school. This is an appeal to the

emotions of the parents and school officials. Everyone wants kids to be happy and healthy while

playing at school, especially parents of the kids. So, if you can teach nutrition and have kids be

excited about coming to school and learning, why wouldn’t you do it? “How can most people

submit so unthinkingly to the dehumanizing experience of lifeless fast food that's everywhere in

our lives? How can you marvel at the world and then feed yourself in a completely un-marvelous

way?” The world is such a beautiful place, providing us with a wide variety of foods to choose

from and eat daily. Eating is something that is essential to human life and is something that

everyone has to do. Waters again targets parents’ emotions to make them feel bad for feeding

their children “lifeless fast food”. Instead of Mcdonald’s, parents and schools could be teaching

kids about healthier, more exciting options that can be grown at home.

Waters also uses figurative language like personification and hyperboles to reinforce her

point about nutrition education and its importance in the school system. “And food seduces you

by its very nature- the smell of baking for example, it makes you hungry! Who can resist the

aroma of fresh bread, or the smell of warm tortillas coming of the comal?” The writer gives the

food personality, the food seduces you with the smell, and it draws you in. Reminds you of the
smell of fresh bread or food in your house, an experience you wouldn’t have at a drive-through.

Using personification entices you and makes you think about fresh bread baking in your kitchen,

this technique pushes you even further to want to make and grow your food with your kids. This

is another perfect example of Waters trying to convince schools and parents to introduce food

nutrition as a part of the curriculum. In paragraph 2 Waters states, “Until we see how we feed

ourselves as just as important as — and maybe more important than — all the other activities of

mankind, there is going to be a huge hole in our consciousness.” Waters uses a hyperbole to

reinforce her point about how important food nutrition is. There won’t be an actual hole in our

consciousness if we don’t prioritize the way we eat, Waters just says this to yet again tell the

readers how important it is for food nutrition to be taught in school.

Rhetorical device three is the appeal to reason or logos. Waters uses the appeal to reason

to challenge the way that people think and choose their foods. The opening line of Waters' article

is “Learning to make the right choices about food is the single most important key to

environmental awareness- for ourselves, and especially for our children.” This quote appeals to

the reason of parents. As a parent, you want everything perfect for your child, so why would you

feed your child subpar food? Fast food or nonorganic food is the easy choice, but, when both

children and parents become educated on the subject of healthy eating, picking and growing

healthy options becomes a much better option. “We must teach the children that taking care of

the land and learning to feed yourself is just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

The writer repeats her point, explaining that taking care of our land and our bodies are as

important as the basic things that humans are taught early on but is often overlooked. Eating and

good nutrition are essential to living a happy healthy life. This appeal to reason elaborates and
expands Waters’ point even more, we eat every day so why isn’t food nutrition a part of school?

It would only benefit the children and the school leading everyone towards a healthier life.

Finally, Waters' extensive use of tone constantly reinforces her point, that food nutrition

in schools is essential. Her quote, “There is nothing else as universal. There is nothing else so

powerful. When you understand where your food comes from, you look at the world in an

entirely different way.” displays her use of tone perfectly. Waters uses short, serious, concise

sentences, helping the reader to understand what the author is saying is important. Her tone

suggests that once we start to eat in a way that is good for our body, the way we view food and

the world will be entirely different. She also says, “Every single choice we make about food

matters, at every level. The right choice saves the world.” Straight, concise, and to the point. The

food matters in every aspect and there is only one right choice to save us and the world. Waters’

tone is used to reinforce her point that food and eating healthily are so important to our survival

and happiness. Food powers everything that happens in our body and it’s something that should

be taken seriously. Waters’ strict, serious, and to-the-point tone tells readers that what she is

saying is important and that schools should provide students with nutrition education because

eating healthy is so important.

What are the roles of the appeal to emotions (pathos), figurative language, and the appeal

to reason (logos), in the persuasive article, “A Delicious Revolution” by Alice Waters? Each

rhetorical device plays a key role in persuading parents and schools to make the right choice for

their children, Alice Waters appeals to parents’ emotions and helps them decide what the best

choice is for their child. The use of figurative language and tone reinforces the fact that it’s so
important to the future of our kids, and the planet to make the right and healthy food choices.

Food is something that everyone can relate to and making the right choice on what to eat and

what to avoid is important. Alice Water’s article reinforces the fact that teaching children to make

healthy food choices is as important as basic subjects taught in school.