Every culture around the world has distinct beliefs that lead them to either consume certain type’s foods, or restrict them from enjoying others. An example of this would be countries on the Eastern hemisphere such as Mongolia, China and India have diverse diets, in comparison to countries in the West hemisphere such as Canada, The US, and Mexico. This is partly attributed to the fact that different regions have different cultures, beliefs and traditions. Many people usually attempt to stay in the culture they grew up in or one who shares many of their similar beliefs and traditions. One of the main reasons cultures also differ in what they consider edible is due to the economic differences people from uncommon cultures experience. People …show more content…
In the Asian hemisphere this includes insects, livestock and other animals that are considered pests in the western hemisphere. According to steenbekkers, in recent years the thought of having insects as a part of your meal has “attracted much Western interest in recent years due to their nutritional and environmental advantages. Consumers, however, remain aversive towards a class of items that is not traditionally considered to be food.” This shows that while some people agree that they are in some ways beneficial, they are not likely to eat it because they have been predisposed to see animals like crickets, grasshoppers and even rats as pests, and generally are not recognized as food to other cultures. In the eastern hemisphere they are considered as a type of food because they are abundant in that area and it economically more efficient for them to raise smaller animals to eat. While eating insects and other pests is seen as disgusting in the Western hemisphere, they look down upon Eastern cultures even more when they become aware that they consider animals like dogs and cats as food. But they have been enjoying them as food for centuries because that is what they had readily available, and no matter what their first reason to begin eating them was “whether by habit, preference, or necessity, dogs have been a part of many cultures' diets,” meaning that they have already become accustomed to eating the animals they do, and even some countries in the western hemisphere have adopted some of these types of foods, in many places in Mexico there has been a lot of economic need, which has led some parts of the culture to begin to eat different types of insects like grasshoppers, crickets and even larvae on some occasions. Not all of the countries that eat these types of animals do it
Last, Americans have no food traditions or universal culture on which they can fall. In many countries, there are food customs that are passed from one generation to the next. Because America is a melting pot of cultures, it does not have a single food custom that we all share. Without the guidance of a single food culture, Americans find themselves lost on which food nourishes and which harm. Pollan gives an example of the French benefiting from food customs.
Today, in common culture, people expect their food right when they want it. Food takes time. It takes time to grow, in a paper by Steve Sexton called “The Inefficiency of Local Food” he claims that Idaho produces 30 percent of the countries potatoes. These potatoes take time to grow. They cannot just be magically grown. They need water, sunlight, and rich soil. People tend to forget this when thinking about their favorite foods. All they can think of is devouring these delectable foods. These foods also
Eating is an instinctual habit; however, what we decide to put in our body is a choice that will affect our way of living. In “The American Paradox,” Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism at University of California, Berkeley, disapproves of the way Americans have been eating. The term “American paradox” describes the inverse correlation where we spend more of our time on nutrition, but it would only lead to our overall health deteriorating. According to Pollan, our way of eating that had been governed with culture, or our mother, was changed by the entities of food marketers and scientists, who set up nutritional guidelines that changed the way we think about food. Nutritional advice is inaccurate as it is never proven, and it is not beneficial
Western diet causes many diseases; increases people’s medical need for supplements and vitamins. However one writer disagrees with him and suggests “Eat foods that are less processed” (Denis Burkitt) which is easy to say but hard to apply on. Future more Pollen’s purpose of writing this article was to show how bad the effects of eating Western dieting can be, and to introduce a way to escape and in order to create a healthier country. Pollan also mentions the fact that livestock is being raised on a Western diet too, which means they are raised genetically too which means nothing is healthy like it used to be. In order to strengthen his statement he shows the percent of income spent on food in countries where the diseases percent is smaller to prove indeed “Western diet” is unhealthy, this matters a lot because currently most of the people living in this country are suffering from chronic diseases caused by wrong diet. Michael
Other countries rely on taste and what their mood is to decide what to eat. An example of this is when you look at the French eating habits. Pollan claims that we Americans refer to the French eating habits as the “French Paradox” (Our National Eating Disorder) but, we are the only ones that use this claim, if anything, we should be labeled as the American Paradox. The French eat in smaller portions, choose what they want to eat, and also make eating a gathering and an enjoyable event. The French are also overall thinner than Americans, have lower rates of heart disease and you could also say they enjoy the activity of eating more than Americans. It can be concluded that America's dietary exercises of choosing what to eat by the scientific information of the food is not working as well as the French way of eating, which is eating what they want. It can also be assumed that even though we Americans believe we are eating healthy, it actually negatively affects our health considering how obese America is compared to the
Unlike Japan, there are many similarities between Canada’s food guide and India’s, even though there are distinctive variations in cultures. In the contrary, there are a few differences between the food ate mainly because of religious teachings.
Vegetarianism finds its origins in numerous different cultures. Most prominent of these are the Native American and Indian backgrounds. Though the image resigning in all our brains of the Native American ancestors is that of carnivorous men adorned out in buffalo skinned loincloths. Conversely, very rarely were Native Americans privy to the luxury of meat or “game”. They were the earliest recollection of human beings surviving without meat. The regular diet for Choctaw Indians consisted of a stew with the main ingredients being corn, pumpkin, and beans eaten from an earthen pot. Also among their favorites were bread, roasted corn, and corn porridge. The reasoning behind their lifestyle mainly all that they could find amongst their land were fruits and vegetables. George Catlin, a famous 19th century historian, described the Choctaw land as grounds covered literally with lines. Grapes ...
Although I find eating worms completely disgusting I think that it is a good idea because of how great it is for the environment. Insects can be produced more sustainably and with a much smaller ecological footprint than vertebrate livestock. They are very efficient at transforming a wide variety of organic matter into edible body mass. For example, cows consume eight grams of feed to gain 1 gram in weight. On the other hand Insects can require less than two grams of feed for the same weight gain. This is mainly because insects are poikilothermic, or “cold-blooded,” which mean they use less energy to maintain body temperature. This in result reduces the amount of animal feed needed to generate the same amount of “meat,” saving a large amount of water that is used for irrigation; saving the area of land dedicated to growing food for livestock; and saving the use of pesticides that can be expensive, harmful to the environment, and pose a risk to humans health. (Why Insects Should Be in Your Diet The Scientist Magazine®.) Of course vegetables, fruits and grains are natural and good for the environment if harvested naturally. The Aboriginal people prayed to the earth for food that will give them strength to live. The earth provides us with exactly what we need to be nourished so all of our processed food is unneeded. I do however feel that we have over populated our space and maybe the idea of the entire population eating completely natural is ridiculous and
Krebs-Smith J, SM Krebs-Smith, and H Smiciklas -Wright. Variety in Foods. In Peter F, What Is America Eating? Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1986.
Many immigrant families bring with them the foods of their home country and are ready to share them with their children and future generations. However, some do not get the chance to do so as they are pressured to give up their foods for “healthier” and more American dishes. This stems from the ongoing problem of assimilation that has plagued America since the decimation of Native Americans. Nutritionists will make the claim that a great majority of the foods that immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America are unhealthy and is the cause for chronic disease in immigrants . Asking them to replace their foods is not saying they should replace ingredients but simply switch to a more Americanized meal instead. Food is a gateway that Americans use to pressure immigrants into assimilation. The pressure to assimilate into American culture may be a source of spikes in immigrant health complications; not because the foods themselves are unhealthy.
Nutrition and health have become more popular in today 's society. Our generation is becoming more and more indebted to the idea of being healthy and eating nutritious meals. However, in “The American Paradox,” by Michael Pollan he argues that our unhealthy population is preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthy than their actual health. He also mentions the food industry, nutrition science and how culture affects the way we eat and make food choices. While Pollan is right about all these factor that affect our eating habits, there is more to it than that. Convenience, affordability and social influence also affects our food choices making them inadequate.
With such a variety of options from every climate and location, it is hard to determine what to eat and even what you can eat, a problem not faced by species like the koala which eat one thing almost exclusively. Humans have benefitted from this in many ways as well. For one thing, we evolved larger brains and better cognitive ability in order to determine and remember what is safe to eat. Humans also have a complex sense of taste that allows us to determine what foods have a high energy content (sweet things) and what may be poisonous (disgusting or bitter things). Since humans began to cook, we have expanded our options by broadening the spectrum of edible things. Cooking opens the door to otherwise inedible substances because it breaks things down and often neutralizes toxins. This has only worsened the omnivore’s dilemma as it adds more options to what you can eat, thereby making the question of what you should eat harder to answer. Food culture and traditions such as those heavily present in countries like Italy and France solve this problem by creating guidelines to help navigate this issue. In Pollan’s eyes, America’s issue is that it lacks any sort of food culture because it is so young and is made up of a wide variety of people. This lack of cultural guidance makes us susceptible to “national eating disorders” like fad diets. People are willing and able to rapidly
Introduction The phrase, “We are what we eat” holds some essential validity and truth to it. Food is a constituent feature of our environmental ties to where we subside. It is a part of our daily lives. It can act as a form of communication with other individuals. Food can be an indicator of the nutrition idiosyncratic cultural groups are practicing.
Creepy, crawly and gross bugs should not be added to food. There are many reasons why bugs should not be added to food starting with the fact that there are many unknown health risks that could put you in danger. Another reason is because they are so expensive that you could buy a steak for the same price, and to get the same amount of protein you would need to eat a lot. While some people think their nutritious they may be more dangerous than we think. Bugs belong beneath us in the ground and not in our food.
Firstly, for those of you who are worried about our rising population (nine billion people in 2050), you should know that currently, on the earth right now there are roughly 10 quintillion edible insects, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects. Now that’s a lot nutritious food. It’s not going to be easy to change this irrational fear, but to the rest of the world, we would be considered strange for NOT eating bugs. Around 80% of the world happily eats insects by choice, and they are all both nutritious and delicious. (That’s the insects not the people). Plus, they are naturally very rich in protein which would help resolve our protein drought in the up in coming future. For example mealworms are around 50%, red-legged locusts are 75% and leafcutter ants are around 58% protein, they are also high in iron and calcium which is excellent news to all the fitness fanatics out there.