Abstract
Supermarket shopping is so ordinary, and so much part of day-to-day life that we are prone to forget the importance of its cultural salience. This thesis looks at shopping for meat and other animal-based foods from the perspective usually missing in consumption and food studies, being that of the frontline actors themselves, the supermarket shoppers (Koch, 2012: 105). This qualitative study looks at thirty-eight supermarkets across urban Sydney and the regional city of Nowra, where I talked to staff, managers, security personnel, and shoppers. I recruited twenty-four participants from various educational, religious, gender and cultural backgrounds and locations.
The thesis examines omnivorousness, and how the habitualisation of eating meat translates into the supermarket shopping experience. It also looks at the tensions and complexities that are emerging around omnivorousness and the meat that is for sale in supermarkets.
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Carol Adams (1991: 134) explained consuming meat and other animal-based items as “a cultural construct and made to seem natural and inevitable”. Loren Lomaski’s (2014) journal article Is it wrong to eat animals? in support of the consumption of animals, echoes the ideals of the omnivorous majority of supermarket shoppers in asserting that “some people never give a thought to what they eat so long as it is the same as they have always had” (p. 177). Lomanski’s assertions give impetus to the notion that eating meat is largely a product of habituation, and as such, is a culinary practice embedded within the Australian psyche. To reinforce this, I look to Fox and Ward’s (2008) account of the relationship between eating and identity, and their argument that diet and behaviour are mutually constitutive, with identities both derived from and influenced by dietary choice (p.
“Food as thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating,” is an article written by Mary Maxfield in response or reaction to Michael Pollan’s “Escape from the Western Diet”. Michael Pollan tried to enlighten the readers about what they should eat or not in order to stay healthy by offering and proposing a simple theory: “the elimination of processed foods” (443).
In the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan challenges his readers to examine their food and question themselves about the things they consume. Have we ever considered where our food comes from or stopped to think about the process that goes into the food that we purchase to eat every day? Do we know whether our meat and vegetables picked out were raised in our local farms or transported from another country? Michael pollen addresses the reality of what really goes beyond the food we intake and how our lives are affected. He does not just compel us to question the food we consume, but also the food our “food” consumes.
In the book published in 2006, the Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural history of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, is a non-fiction book about American eating habits and the food dilemma that many Americans are facing today. Pollan begins the book by discussing the dilemma of the omnivore like ourselves, a creature with many choices of food. Pollan decides to learn the root to the food dilemma by examining the three primary food chains: industrial food chain, the organic food chain, and the hunter-gathering food chain. His journey begins by first exploring the industrialized food industry. Pollan examines the industry by following both corn and cow from the beginning through the industrialized process. The work on the corn fields of George Naylor shows him that the industrial system has made corn appears nearly in all products in the supermarket (Pollan 33-37). Pollen then decides to purchase a steer which allows him to see the industrialized monoculture of beef production and how mass production produces food to serve the society. Following his journey, Pollan and his family eat a meal at McDonald's restaurant. Pollan realizes that he and very few people actually understand how such a meal is created. By examining the different food paths available to modern man and by analyzing those paths, Pollan argues that there is a basic relation between nature and the human. The food choice and what we eat represents a connection with our natural world. The industrial food ruins that ecological connections. In fact, the modern agribusiness has lost touch with the natural cycles of farming. Pollan presents the book with a question in the beginning: "What should we have for dinner?" (Pollan 1) This question posed a combination of p...
The food industry is in a state of necessary revolution, for obesity rates seem to be rising exponentially, counties striving to develop have hit lack-of-food road blocks, and massive animal farms produce threats such as unethical treatment of animals and food-borne pathogen spikes. With these dilemmas revolving around the food world, it is natural for one to ponder, “Are human’s inherently omnivorous, eating both animal and plant based products, or were we suppose to be receiving nutrients solely from a vegetarian diet?” Kathy Freston, author of The Lean: A Revolutionary (and Simple!) 30-Day Plan for Healthy, Lasting Weight Loss, discusses her viewpoint surrounding the dilemma by writing “Shattering the Meat Myth: Humans are Natural Vegetarians.” Freston’s answer to the questions presented above
Michael Pollan’s essay “Escape from the Western Diet”, excerpted from Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” (1 Jan 2008).
My Year of Meats (Ozeki) tells the story of two women in two very different parts of the world, and their tumultuous, life-changing journey with meat over the course of a year. Both characters come face to face with situations that test their beliefs and morals, as well as their resolve. There are many themes and lessons that come out of the two women’s’ journey regarding the media, meat products and capitalism, but one of the majors themes that is present in all aspects of the story is the idea of how ideals are carried through society. At one point or another, both women are faced with a choice to either continue on the path their life is currently on, or go against society and change their course. Ruth Ozeki supports the idea in her book that in order to be truly happy and have a less stereotypical society, each individual member of society must be willing to look at their own lives and change it themselves; otherwise, true change will never happen, and society will never be able to move past its limiting views.
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself: am I really eating healthy? Recently, I’ve come to the realization of what I’m eating on a daily basis isn’t entirely healthy for me. Michael Pollan, who is author of the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has opened my mind. While reading the first couple of chapters of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I’ve realized that I don’t know much about the food that I am eating. For example, I didn’t know that farmers not only feed their animals, corn but they also feed them antibiotics (Walsh 34). In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan makes a strange statement, “You are what what you eat eats, too” (Pollan 84). Pollan continuously emphasizes this remark through various examples, and he’s right because strangely enough the food
Christopher McCandless, a young American who was found dead in summer of 1992 in wild land in Alaska, wrote in his diary about his moral struggle regarding killing a moose for survival. According to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Chris had to abandon most of the meat since he lacked the knowledge of how to dismantle and preserve it (166-168). Not only did he have a moral dilemma to kill a moose, but also had a deep regret that a life he had taken was wasted because of his own fault. He then started recognizing what he ate as a precious gift from the nature and called it “Holy Food” (Krakauer 168). Exploring relationships between human beings and other animals arouses many difficult questions: Which animals are humans allowed to eat and which ones are not? To which extent can humans govern other animals? For what purposes and on which principles can we kill other animals? Above all, what does it mean for humans to eat other animals? The answer may lie in its context. Since meat-eating has been included and remained in almost every food culture in the world throughout history and is more likely to increase in the future due to the mass production of meat, there is a very small chance for vegetarianism to become a mainstream food choice and it will remain that way.
The ethnographic study took place at McDonalds’ shop, Leeds, local market in the afternoon of Monday, 17th January 2011. From away I could observe the huge logo of McDonalds. I stood at the entrance and stared at the shop for few seconds. The shop was far more elegant than the average McDonald’s. The interior has a minimal style with posh chairs, tables, black art deco fixtures, beautiful paintings and attractive lights and draperies. There were large windows so it was impossible for customers to see into the Harvey Nichols store. Also, outside were window boxed filled with flowers or greenery. I could hear some relaxing music. At first glance, I noticed that customers were people with different age groups, genders, ethnic classes, social classes and cultural backgrounds. The language which was more spoken was English. [Without thinking, I was moving towards the counter, I faced] the girl behind the counter [; she] was wearing a red t-shirt with a cap and a hut. She seemed to be in a rush to handle the orders. Despite that, she was friendly and with a smile on the face to welcome the customers. The most co...
In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan ventures out to answer the seemingly simple question of: “What should we eat for dinner?” (L1). Our ability to consume just about anything nature has to offer has left us with what Pollan states as: “the omnivores dilemma”. Throughout his book, Pollan seeks to unmask the secrets behind our seemingly harmless everyday meals.
This goes back to the idea of how culture frequently imprints concepts in our minds of how we should behave and how we are supposed to act. With the help of corporations and media, society continues to apply pressure on women regarding how much food they consume, how they behave around food and behavior or place in the kitchen. The gender specific duties of a woman implemented by our culture entail that females adopt a healthier or lighter style of eating. Women are supposed to eat salads or consume their meals politely and femininely because society tells them to. The woman is considered as the nurturer, the homemaker, the salad eater, and the kitchen cook. The man however is the hunter, the caveman, the meat eater, and the one with the robust appetite. The man is the one who is expected to develop a liking towards meat and junk foods. In a research study that was conducted at the University of British Columbia, researchers investigated individual’s opinions on vegetarians and omnivores. The participants of the study were asked to rate the omnivores or vegetarians personality based on limited information including their weight, height, activities and most importantly, their gender. The participants that evaluated the individuals noted that the vegetarians were the more virtuous and moral
Environmental advocate and cofounder of Eatingliberally.org, Kerry Trueman, in her response to Stephen Budiansky’s Math Lessons for Locavores, titled, The Myth of the Rabid Locavore, originally published in the Huffington Post, addresses the topic of different ways of purchasing food and its impact on the world. In her response, she argues that Budiansky portrayal of the Local Food Movement is very inaccurate and that individuals should be more environmentally conscious. Trueman supports her claim first by using strong diction towards different aspects of Budinsky essay, second by emphasizes the extent to which his reasoning falls flat, and lastly by explaining her own point with the use of proper timing. More specifically, she criticizes many
“What should we have for dinner?” (Pollan 1). Michael Pollan, in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals shows how omnivores, humans, are faced with a wide variety of food choices, therefore resulting in a dilemma. Pollan shows how with new technology and food advancement the choice has become harder because all these foods are available at all times of the year. Pollan portrays to his audience this problem by following food from the food chain, to industrial food, organic food, and food we forage ourselves; from the source to a final meal and, lastly he critiques the American way of eating. Non-fiction books should meet certain criterions in order to be successful. In his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan is able to craft an ineffective piece of non-argumentative non-fiction due to a lack of a clear purpose stated at the outset of the book, as well as an inability to engage the reader in the book due to the over-excessive use of technical jargon as well as bombarding the reader with facts.
“The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that their treatment has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality."(Schopenhauer). I always wondered why some people are not so drawn to the consumption of meat and fed up with only one thought about it. Why so many people loathe of blood, and why so few people can easily kill and be slaughter animal, until they just get used to it? This reaction should say something about the most important moments in the code, which was programmed in the human psyche. Realization the necessity of refraining from meat is especially difficult because people consume it for a long time, and in addition, there is a certain attitude to the meat as to the product that is useful, nourishing and even prestigious. On the other hand, the constant consumption of meat has made the vast majority of people completely emotionless towards it. However, there must be some real and strong reasons for refusal of consumption of meat and as I noticed they were always completely different. So, even though vegetarianism has evolved drastically over time, some of its current forms have come back full circle to resemble that of its roots, when vegetarianism was an ethical-philosophical choice, not merely a matter of personal health.
What the American culture is used to is eating three meals with a few snacks in between a day, and two out of the three meals usually involve eating meat. Most people don’t realize the risks of eating meat. Today’s medical experts say that avoiding meat helps you avoid saturated fat. They have found out from studies that women who eat meat daily have a fifty percent greater risk of developing heart disease than vegetarian women and a sixty-eight percent greater risk in men (staff writer). People may not know about serious diseases meat can obtain such as, mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease. In the September 1999 issue of the Emerging Infectious Diseases, approximately 76 million food borne illnesses- resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths occur in the United States each year from improperly cooked or diseased meat (Licher). That is a lot! You can also get salmonella poisoning from meat. People think that the problems come from eating red meat and are opting for fish over steak, but new evidence proves that fish can cause health problems too, risks that can’t be cooked away. This is a growing problem called histamine poisoning (Peck). Children are learning at a younger age that they don’t like meat, maybe because they don’t like the taste, or maybe it’s because they have a fear of eating their favorite cartoon or movie hero. For example, the pig from the movie “babe”.