Analysis Of Wansink And Payne's The Joy Of Cooking
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Logic is essential to any argument. If an argument is not rational, how can it be trusted to be accurate or reliable? In Brian Wansink and Collin R. Payne’s article “The Joy of Cooking Too Much: 70 Years of Calorie Increases in Classic Recipes,” Wansink and Payne investigate the possible increase in calorie content and serving size over the past 70 years in the cookbook “The Joy of Cooking.” Statistics prove that calorie content and serving size have generally increased over the decades, and Wansink and Payne effectively argue that these factors should decrease to prevent obesity. In their thorough analysis of “The Joy of Cooking,” Wansink and Payne clearly explain their method of collecting and analyzing the data they collect. The objective of the analysis is simply to “assess changes in calorie density and…show more content… Although there is a clear explanation of the data, the mathematical terms used can be difficult to understand for those unfamiliar with statistical methods. The authors do help to explain the data by defining any result with a P value “less than 0.05 [as] statistically significant” (120). All of the results have a P value of less than 0.001, making each one significant. A table demonstrates the changes in average total calories, the number of servings per recipe, and the “mean average calories per serving” (120). Labelling the years on the table shows the change over time, and it is obvious that each category, with the exception of the “mean number of servings per recipe,” has generally increased over time. Wansink and Payne explain that although three recipes “decreased their serving size at any point in the past 70 years…all three were compensated by subsequent increases in later years” (121). While these three recipes appear to contradict the results, they actually rise again to support the conclusion that the calorie content and serving sizes have