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Sajjad1994, pls rate my essay.
Q- "In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses. Walk into Heart's Delight, a store that started selling organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours in the 1960's, and you will also find a wide selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content. Next door, the owners of the Good Earth Cafe, an old vegetarian restaurant, are still making a modest living, but the owners of the new House of Beef across the street are millionaires."
The argument claims that people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their consumption of red meat and fatty cheeses, using the support that owners House of Beef restaurant are millionaires while owners of Good Earth café which is a vegetarian place are just making a modest living. The argument also uses as support the fact that Heart’s Delight, an organic fruits and vegetable seller in 1960s, has started selling a wide variety of cheeses with high butterfat content. Stated in this way, the argument reveals example of poor reasoning and leap of faith. The argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence and hence this argument has very weak legs to stand upon.
First, the argument conveniently looks over what the source of income/wealth is for owners of House of Beef while using the economic status of the House of Beef owners as proof that people are eating red meet in huge amounts. What if the House of Beef restaurant is in deep debt because of very low sales and the millionaire status of House of Beef owners is because of their generational wealth? The argument also never bothers to dive into what actually are the customers of House of Beef eating when they visit the restaurant. Are they really only eating red meat in huge amounts or does red meat constitute a very small part of the total volume of orders at House of Beef? Had the author even touched upon the aforementioned points, it would have been a much stronger one. In the absence of convincing answers to these questions, the argument’s claims come across as a stretch.
Secondly, the author also uses economic status of owners of Good Earth Café and the selection of cheeses available at Heart’s Delight as support for their argument that people’s eating habits have gone down the drain. Again, using the economic status of owners of Good Earth Café as a yardstick to measure the eating habits of its patrons is a perfect example of flawed reasoning. The author never once gives any support to their argument that the eating patterns of its customers are the reason for decline of Good Earth Café. It could also very well be the case that other vegetarian cafes in the vicinity might be flourishing but Good Earth has lost customers because of its shoddy service, high prices or any other similar reason. Also, the author uses the presence of selection of cheeses in Heart’s Delight as another proof that now people are indulging in high butterfat content cheeses. This is another assumption for which the author provides no evidence. There is no correlation demonstrated by the author between presence of the cheese section in Heart’s Delight and increase in cheese consumption by the people coming to Heart’s Delight.
There are many questions that have been left unanswered by the author. Had the author answered questions such as how indicative are the trends in these three stores of the eating habits of people as a whole in the town/country where these stores are present, are the stores similar to these stores also experiencing the same things as mentioned by the author and how many people out of the total have actually increased their consumption of red meat and cheese, they could have definitely made this argument much more convincing
Finally, the holes in this argument are many in number and massive in size. The author must procure evidence for the assumptions they use to reach the conclusion. Failure to mention several key factors that are crucial to assess the merits and demerits of the argument leaves to argument open to debate.