Food And Culture: The Relationship Between Food And Culture

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Not only is food indispensable for survival, it is also a subject that is important to the construction of cultures. Indeed, from the sociological perspective, there is a direct relationship between food and culture.

In a view of sociology, human society is inseparable from culture. In Gerrig (2010), he academically defined culture as “The share ways of life that facilitate the interaction and communication among social members, and yet at the same time classify and position them into different and unequal social categories”. That means culture is being communicated by thought, feeling and action. More significantly, the wordings of share, communication and social members are essential factors towards culture. It shows that culture is unique …show more content…

As far as Gerrig considered, function is one of the reasons to interrupt the arising culture. From this reading , due to the society background of India, which is low-energy, small-scale and animal-based system, cows are essential for the survival of agricultural society. Author indicated a wide range of functions towards cows. The most significant function is that cows produce oxen. Similarly, cows and oxen provide low-energy substitutes for tractors and tractor factories. The greatest difference/function between cows and oxen is that the former produces milk and meat and the latter is working animals, such as plowing and pulling oxcarts. If the Hindus slaughtered cows in order to survive from hunger, they would not survive soon based on the function of oxen, helping to operate the agricultural system. So as to balance and maintain the agricultural system in India, cows are considered sacred. In additional to the above function, cows and cattle “annually excrete about 700 million tons of recoverable manure” that half of the manure can be used as fertilizer, and a part of this can be used as cooking fuel because of its cleanness and long-lasting flame. Moreover, cow dung can be used as a household cleaning materials to clean the floor. Also, 500 pounds of milk made by cows. This function can subsist on the edge of starvation in a poor situation of India society. Eventually, those functions demonstrate the reasons why Indian do not eat beef from

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