Callahan 1 Emilie Callahan English 1010 25 September 2013 Noodles to the Rescue?

"If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger, Buzz Aldrin. The advancements of men are truly superb, however, our societies achievements make the fact that we are short solutions for simple problems like hunger, even more deplorable. Even still, despite the lack of progress in solving world hunger, Eliza Barclay, author of the article Ramen To The Rescue: How Instant Noodles Fight Global Hunger, offers hope to the problem of world hunger. Such hope comes in the form of ramen noodles. Her article contains ideas expressed from the The Noodle Narratives: The Global Rise of an Industrial Food Into the Twenty-First Century, and the books authorsFrederick Errington, Deborah Gewertz, and Tatsuro Fujikura. As a writer for NPRs The Salt, Eliza Barclay generally speaks to an audience of college graduates who are aware of their communities. While writing for NPRs The Salt, Eliza Barclay effectively uses the rhetorical devices of ethos, pathos, and logos in her article, Ramen to the Rescue: how Noodles Fight Global Hunger, to convince her audience that there is an easy and cheap solution to end world hunger; the answer is noodles. In Elizas article, she echoes a thought held by the authors of the Noodle Narratives. The thought is that the mass produced and consumed Ramen noodles are the solution to hunger. Seeing that ramen noodles is budget staple when the going gets tough, it is a solution that is currently in the early stages of implementation. They explain Ramens benefits, one being culturally adaptable and another being inexpensive. In addition, they suggest that to make ramen noodles an even more sustainable fix, a nutritional upgrade is in order. By discussing the role of ramen in the past, they are able to emphasize its importance in the future. As an author and journalist, it is important for Barclay to build her credibility. To achieve this goal, she uses a great deal of ethos. In contrast to other writers, Eliza utilizes ethos to boost the integrity of her sources boasting, Indeed, it's the multinational noodle companies' conquest of countries like Papua New Guinea, Nigeria, Brazil and Mexico that really interests the anthropologists: Frederick Errington of Trinity College, Tatsuro Fujikura of Kyoto University and Deborah Gewertz of Amherst College. (Barclay para. 4) It is said the the highest form of knowledge is the ability to teach. Barclays sources are not only proficient enough in the study of mankind to commentate on world hunger, but they are also qualified enough to lecture it. In addition, commenting on the level

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of interest her sources have on the subject suggests additional sincerity to her educated and fair-minded informants. Furthermore, Barclay uses ethos to build the credibility of the heroic noodles. When describing ramen noodles beginnings, Eliza reports, Back in 1957, businessman Momofuku Ando (yes, the namesake of Chef David Changs beloved restaurants) decided he wanted to invent an industrial take on freshly made ramen the stuff Chang has helped make trendy again for his hungry, budget-minded compatriots using surplus wheat donated by the U.S. (Barclay para. 9) According to the author, the profession of noodles is to alleviate hunger, in fact, it is ramens destiny to help the budget minded stay full. When she portrays ramen noodles as a professional, she certifies its credibility as a solution. In addition to building her sources credibility as an ethical appeal, Eliza improves her credibility by using correct grammar and maintaining a professional format throughout her article. This component is especially important when crediting her as a journalist. Her article is well organized and modeled after the correct outline for a features article. Equally important to proving her credibility for her audience, is providing them with pathos. One way that Barclay appeals to her audience emotionally is articulating emotionally loaded language. Eliza states, Instant noodles do good by alleviating the hunger of millions of people around the world. (Barclay para. 4) Sympathy is nearly inevitable when discussing the hungry millions of the world. This sympathy becomes even easier to find when combined with an audience that is extremely aware of their communities. Barclay continues this pattern of emotionally loaded language saying, And that helps explain why ramen have become a staple of the world's undernourished and part of some humanitarian food aid packages. (Barclay para. 12) Eliza is extremely talented in increasing the support her readers will find with her cause as she paints this picture of an undernourished population looking to humanitarians with their ramen filled care packages to save them. However dramatic the picture may be, it is effective in gathering support of the sympathetic. In addition to her plea for support through emotionally loaded language, she also works to provide a feeling of contempt for those who disapprove of Ramen while continuing to improve the idea of ramen being a saving grace for any poor community writing, The authors say that "real food" advocates like journalist Michael Pollan, who wring their hands over rising consumption of industrial food like ramen, raise important questions about its perils.

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But the authors also call ramen a "virtually unstoppable" phenomenon. And they foresee a world of 9 billion people "in which the affluent will be presented with too many food choices and [will be] called upon to use their survival skills to choose wisely, and in which the poor will have to use their survival skills to get by on cheap food" like ramen."I'd love to take Michael Pollan to a squatter settlement and have him deal with poor, hungry people in such circumstances, who have no choice of going back home to grow subsistence crops or be part of a regional food system," says Gewertz. (Barclay para.16/17) It is made clear by Elizas interviewees that for the poor, there are no subsistence or real food options. This revelation makes Ramen opposers look delusional and high minded. Such an argument was risky, especially because food advocate, Michael Pollan, writes for The Salt alongside Barclay. Fortunately for Eliza, the risk paid off with a surplus of sadness and pity that occurs when her audience is informed of the poor squatters left choice less. If Elizas previous point did not promote enough pity for the poor squatters and slum inhabitants, she continues the roast on Pollan quoting, "Subsistence agriculture is hard, dirty and hot work. People want out of it. It's not to be over romanticized. (Barclay para. 17) " This is idea adds further despair to the hungry poors despair, adding even more pity to the abundance that already exists. The final important appeal that the author uses to bias her audience to the ramen solution is logos. Equally important to ethos and pathos, her intellectual appeals exist in the article to back up her opinion with the cold facts. Eliza begins describing Ramens reach explaining, of instant ramen, from its birth in postwar Japan to its sales of just over 100 billion servings worldwide in 2012.Take a moment to digest that figure: It's about 14 servings for every single person on Earth, at a cost of just a few cents apiece. Proving Ramen Noodles influence the the 100 billion servings as stated above, makes ramen noodles a logical solution. Noodles already have an infrastructure throughout the globe. It only makes sense for people to invest in a proven institution that is cheap and already a part of millions diets.

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To further emphasis the influence of Ramen, Eliza reminds her audience, we're only the world's sixth-biggest market for the noodles, according to the World Instant Noodles Association. Although NPR is an international broadcast, the bulk of its adherents live in the United States of America. Among the americans who are part of their audience, many live in cosmopolitan areas. Barclay writes that we are ranked six in the world for ramen noodle consumption, knowing that many of her readers are constantly reminded of the obtuse population size in the US. Such a fact is mind blowing, considering the fact that there are millions of people that are based in America. Barclays outpour of quantitative statistics must leave her audience wondering where the consumption of ramen is distributed. This is a question Eliza promptly addressees stating, "They're capable of being transformed to everyone's cultural taste." In Thailand, instant ramen is seasoned with lemongrass and cilantro. Mexicans can buy Maruchan noodle soup cups flecked with shrimp, lime and habanero, among other flavors. Papua New Guineans have incorporated the noodles into rituals as cardinal as weaning babies and honoring the dead, she says. In the fight against world hunger, there is no better universal solution that is already sustaining different cultures when the going gets tough, and when the going is just fine. To finalize her logic, she plays devils advocate stating, They're made with wheat flour, which has a high glycemic index (a metric for how soon a food is likely to make you hungry again). But they're also fried in palm oil, which is 49 percent saturated fat higher than pork lard (40 percent) and soybean oil (14 percent)... in the U.S., we're told to eat palm oil sparingly because it raises LDL cholesterol levels. So is it really wise for so many people around the world to be so reliant on instant ramen for sustenance? ...Instead, as Gerwertz tells us, a better way to help the poor who rely on ramen is to make the noodles more nutritious: They could be "reduced-sodium, lower-fat, higher-fiber, better fortified," though that will also translate into a slightly higher price. The fact that she highlighted a flaw in her plan ensures her audiences trust in the depth of Elizas commitment, a

Callahan 5 commitment that even surpasses that towards her work. Simultaneously, she finds a workable solution to build the logic that ramen noodles are truly the answer to world hunger.

In closing, Eliza Barclay was highly effective in proving the ramen noodles are, in fact, to the rescue. Her solution earned credibility by her logical, ethical and emotional appeals. Her logic lacked no holes. To ensure this, she used a counterclaim to provide strength to her argument. Elizas opinion that with healthier innovations, ramen noodles are the answer to world hunger is made very clear to her various readers. Her ethics and emotions are equal to that of her logic. Her only flaw is the conviction she lacked when calling noodle companies to make their ramen more nutritional.

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Works Cited

Barclay, Eliza. Ramen To The Rescue: How Instant Noodles Fight Global Hunger. The Salt. NPR, 20 August 2013. Web. 9 September 2013.