Impact of the Technological Advancements of Preserving Food
The consequences of the technological advancements of preserving food in the early days of America are quite profound. In the scope of just 100 years, agricultural business went from being locally owned and operated where goods were produced and sold within the parameters of small towns, to an intricate network of business that spanned the entire continent. Most rural dwellers at the time were self sufficient forn the food that their land provided. This greatly affected the diets, outlook, and consumption patterns of individuals. With an expanded array of foods to choose from, Americans could have a more fine tailored diet according to their nutritional wants and needs. Abundance was the key term, and when there is abundance, there is bound to be creative forces working with it. Now that more food was available to the average person, cooking shifted from being a remedial chore of survival into an art, or hobby. In the late 1800's cookbooks became increasingly popular amongst housewives and cooks, which had an impact on what the family ate on a day-to-day basis. Gone were the times of eating bread, salt pork, and corn pone day in and day out, and in came meals tailored to creative tastes. Things like Texas raised roast beef cooked with apples from Washington and sugar from the West Indies was becoming more of a comman and appealing thing.
Growing food markets also led to the decline of locally owned and operated farms. Families abandoned their backyard gardening in lieu of the quick and efficient market system. Local farms could no compete with the big-scale farmers outside of the city, who at this time began to seed the future for monoculture food where a plot of land is used primarily for growing one particular crop. With a declining number of people actually working the land, our internal biorhythm clock has been altered and re-adapted to the market economy. Instead of a crop being harvested a certain time of the year, people focused on the time in which the meat man or egg man was going to be in town.
With refrigeration also came an increased knowledge in the field of food nutrition. People were becoming more conscious with what they put into their body and the farmers were there to supply. Studies by the American Food Administration began to come out more and more, informing citizens of the nutritional value of foods that influenced their buying.
The changes in American agriculture was molded by three key factors, economic change, government policy and technology, in the period of 1865-1900.Technology helped facilitated production of good as well as their transportation. Farmers were able to produce more goods, yet they overproduced and it resulted in economic hardship for them. They could not afford to export goods through the rail roads high rates, and led to clashing with the government, for the lack of support. Such factors resulted in change of American agriculture.
the growing concern about the quality of food in America the government took action to
The minimum wage was, as it should be, a living wage, for working men and women ... who are attempting to provide for their families, feed and clothe their children, heat their homes, [and] pay their mortgages. The cost-of-living inflation adjustment since 1981 would put the minimum wage at $4.79 today, instead of the $4.25 it will reach on April 1, 1991. That is a measure of how far we have failed the test of fairness to the working poor.” (Burkhauser 1)
The 1920’s were the singularly most influential years of farming in our country. The loss of farms following the war, and new agricultural practices resulted in the dawn of modern agriculture in our country. The shift from small family to big corporation during this time is now the basis for how our society deals with food today. Traditional farming in the 1920’s underwent a series of massive transitions following WWI as the number of farms decreased and the size of farms increased.
Imagine working under poor conditions for over 40 hours a week to afford basic human necessities only to remain nothing more than a cog in a corporal machine seen unworthy of livable wages. While this may seem unrealistic, it proves as reality for many lower class Americans. Minimum wage has seen a drastic decline in relation to the inflation of living costs, an issue addressed in Lew Prince’s, “The American Dream Needs a Fair Minimum Wage”. In the article, Prince, a business owner, states, “... in 1979, the minimum wage was $2.90 -- that would be $9.50, adjusted for inflation in 2014 dollars”. Even with this information, many americans above the poverty level line argue against an increase in wages. Although opinions often
Many people against raising the minimum wage create arguments such as, “it will cause inflation”, or, “ it will result in job loss.” Not only are these arguments terribly untrue, they also cause a sense of panic towards the majority working-class. Since 1938, the federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times. For more than 75 years, real GDP per capita has consistently increased, even when the wage has been
Gitterman, Daniel P. “Remaking A Bargain: The Political Logic Of The Minimum Wage In The United States.” Poverty And Public Policy 5.1 (2013): 3-36. EconLit. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
Customers/Consumers were worried about the changes in the market for food and drugs because they no longer had a single clue of what was in their products. Food production was moving from household prepared to general markets. As food markets became more refined due to the improvement of technology. The difficulty in discerning the quality of their product heightened. With new and quicker ways make food, fears of the ingredients that the foods consisted grew. Preservatives and chemicals also instilled a concern to consumers. Health officials, chemists, and other individuals tested and proved the dangers of these new additives.
“Art therapy is a form of therapy in making of visual images (paintings, drawings, models etc.) in the presences of a qualified art therapist contributes towards externalization of thoughts and feelings which may otherwise remain unexpressed”(Walter & Gilory, 1992).
Food—it is that precious substance our bodies need to survive. Whether it brings feelings of nostalgia and comfort, or unites families together, we can all agree that food is a vital source of nourishment. However, our definition of food has changed drastically with the advent of modern technology, which has given rise countless food trends. The desire for the cheap mass-production of food has induced an unspoken transition from slow cooked chicken and steamed veggies to frozen tv-dinners disguised to look like actual food worthy of consumption. Hence, food trends and technology effects the way we produce, purchase, and consume food in the United States.
America’s food source has altered drastically in the last century and so has the health of many. Americans used to thrive on natural foods for nutritional value, now Americans thrive on processed and manufactured food for just for convenience. Food companies have changed the very way we view nutrition. They have taken chemistry to a whole new level and added what they want it to what we now call food even if that harms our bodies in the long run. Food companies have also caused many hard working farmers to lose their jobs. These food companies have lost insight as to what is truly important in a food product and don’t care if that means taking someone else’s job.
Food is traditionally considered as a simple means of subsistence but has developed to become filled with cultural, psychological, religious, and emotional significance. Consequently, food is currently used as a means of defining shared identities and symbolizes religious and group customs. In the early 17th and 18th centuries, this mere means of subsistence was considered as a class maker but developed to become a symbol of national identity in the 19th centuries. In the United States, food has been influenced by various cultures such as Native American, Latin America, and Asian cultures. Consequently, Americans have constantly Americanized the foods of different cultures to become American foods. The process on how Americans have Americanized different cultures’ foods and reasons for the Americanization is an important topic of discussion.
Food science has led to find cures for diseases such as scurvy. Scurvy is a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, characterized by swollen bleeding gums and the opening of previously healed wounds, which particularly affected poorly nourished sailors until the end of the 18th century. This disease was very common among sailors because in the 18th century they didn’t have refrigerators, so their diets lacked perishable foods while sailing the sea. Today, if you come across this problem you can just eat a vitamin C tablet. This is just one of the many examples food science has promoted a balanced diet by the study of nutrients in our food. Food science has also done some damage to people’s diets by replacing fresh food in our supermarkets to aisles of boxed and frozen food that lack nutrients in them This problem was noticed in 1977 when a document called Dietary Goals for the United States was created after rates of coronary heart disease had soared in America since World War II. In 1977, the lipid hypothesis, it proposes that dietary or saturated fat causes heart disease by raising the concentration of cholesterol in the blood. Government has been changing the Dietary Guidelines for the United States quite often which proves not even scientists know everything about nutrition. Nutritionism has led to the creation of processed foods which has been
Pyke, Alan. "The Minimum Wage: Myths & Facts." Media Matters for America. N.p., 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 18 May 2014.
Since Silverstone’s research and papers, Domestication has been adopted by many leading experts as the core concept of appropriation in media technology, and while Silverstone unfortunately passed away in 2006, his work can easily be brought into modern culture. Silverstone discusses the use of broadcasting and television with his theory of domestication in 2006, however, most recently he referenced the domestication of the mobile phone and other wireless and portable technologies into the home. Today, Silverstone’s theory of domestication is still being widely regarded as ...