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The following appeared in a magazine article on trends and lifestyles.
‘In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty chesses. Walk into the Heart’s Delight, a store that started selling organic fruits and vegetables and wholegrain 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 Café, and old vegetarian restaurant, are still making a modest living, but the owners of the new House of Beef across the street are millionaires.’

On the surface it seems that the conclusion drawn by the author that people are, in general, less concerned about their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses than a decade ago. However, there are several flaws in the argument that weakens the conclusion.

Firstly, the author states that Heart’s Delight is currently selling a selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content. To support the conclusion with this statement, the author is assuming that this store has introduced non-healthy products but not healthy ones. It is possible that nowadays there is a wider variety of organic fruits and vegetables than in the 1960’s. Moreover, the fact that Heart’s Delight is selling a product doesn’t mean that customers buy it.

Secondly, in the comparison of the way of living of the owners of Good Earth Café and House of Beef the author is comparing to different kinds of restaurants. A vegetarian restaurant has a narrower target than a meat restaurant given that the population who are vegetarian is smaller than the population who are not.

Thirdly, the fact that the owners of House of Beef are millionaires and the owners of Good Earth Café are not is not a representative piece of information about the concerns of the general population. The success of House of Beef is maybe because of a better service or because it is a more elitist restaurant were celebrities go dinner. Additionally, it exists the possibility that owners of House of Beef were millionaires previously they opened the restaurant.

Finally, we can’t conclude that generally people are less concerned about their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses without knowing the situation a decade ago.

Overall, the argument is not strong enough to support the conclusion given that the evidences supplied by the author are flawed and some assumptions are needed to hold true the conclusion.

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