HW 6 - Food Diary

Food Diary: 9/29/10

Every day for breakfast i eat the same thing: bacon and eggs. i just prefer its saltiness over anything else (the saltier the better). The smell is so familiar to me when i wake up in the morning and it gives me a good start to my day. I love the smell of bacon as well. My best guess to why i prefer such salty foods is because i grew up eating these salty foods.

For lunch i usually get a plain bagel toasted with butter. Ive always like toasted or barbeque foods, whether its the smell or the taste i can never go wrong with a plain bagel toasted with butter. I believe its just the general taste of something that has been toasted that makes the flavor so good (as well as the crunchiness).

For dinner i had beans and rice with some salad on the side. My dad likes to cook me and my mom dinner and i usually enjoy what he makes and tonight was no exception. This is just one example of the fact that my family and i eat widely diverse foods. Mexican food is one of my favorites foods and the combination of beans rice and salad mixed together is extremely tasty.

Food Diary: 9/30/10

Today i had the same thing as always: Bacon and eggs (but with toast with peanut butter and jelly on the side). Today i examined how when the bacon is just put on my plate and is steaming hot i can taste the saltiness a lot less.

Today for lunch i had something different though, i had cheese fries. Now-a-days i am usually not so hungry around lunch time, but today i was starving and cheese fries do the trick because they are so fattening. My love for cheese fries goes back to my love for salty foods, and you dont get much saltier than fries with melted cheese on top. After i ate the cheese fries though i felt sick and decided to go back to my original idea of bagel toasted with butter for lunch.

For dinner i had two cheeseburgers because i was more hungry than usual. I've always liked cheeseburgers but my mom doesn't eat meat so we usually eat turkey burgers, but tonight my mom wasn't home yet and on nights when she isn't home my dad makes regular cheeseburgers. I've always enjoyed barbeque foods in general (as stated before, i like things that have been grilled or toasted).

I want to stay skinny but i eat a lot and i don't feel good half of the time about the things that i eat. I pick these foods that i eat out of pure instinct and convenience but i should eat healthier. Within 48 hours i ate 2,158 calories which was under my goal, but i still don't feel like i ate too well. I like eating the food my dad makes because it is usually healthier than what i get on my own, but i don't like it at the same time because i eat it most nights and get tired of it. I sometimes question myself what i can do to break these bad habits and one solution is too workout more so i can balance out the fattening foods that i usually eat.

HW 5 - Dominant Discourses Regarding Contemporary Foodways in the U.S

In todays society, food is a wildly discussed issue. Especially in america, where obesity rates are climbing and whilst the government tries to encourage the people of america to eat healthier foods, nothing is making a significant change. A discourse is a way of having a conversation with particular ways, rules and people. This would mean that the dominant discourse of food in the united states is food being looked at as poison and as well as food as medicine.

After reading a couple of articles from the new york times, it is clear that articles often report on the diseases certain foods carry, and how fattening foods can be. This is where the argument of food as poison comes in to play. The people who are often quoted in these arguments are major politicians, companies or what the journalists consider to be important doctors. These companies often report facts and statistics that journalists will include to scare people in to believing junk food is bad. For example: In the article "Told to Eat Its Vegetables, America Orders Fries" Kim Severson includes that the "Center for Disease Control and Prevention" issued a study that only 26 percent of the nations adults eat vegetables three or more times a day. She goes on further to say that those results "fell far short of health objectives set by the federal government a decade ago". The basic outline of that information is that americans aren't eating healthy enough

For food being discussed as medicine, the Ny times article "Doctor's Orders - Eat Well to Be Well" Katrina Heron reports on doctor Preston Maring, who is a gynecologist and a surgeon who is keen on eating healthy and teaching others (as well as his son helping him) to eat healthier. This article focuses more on the food as medicine aspect because the journalist reports on how Dr.Maring and his son push the idea of eating healthier and how much better it is for you.

Based on the articles that i have read, i believe that people think we are living in a time in which significant reform of U.S. foodways might occur, but also think that is less likely to happen. Just like in the "Told to Eat Its Vegetables..." article, it was reported that food objectives fell short. Even the very thing the article was revolving around (baby carrot machines) were told to have no effect. Although there is barley an effect, there is still a lot of hope. As stated in the article Michelle Obama planted an organic garden in the white house lawn and tries to encourage people to eat vegetables as a part of her "Lets Move campaign against childhood obesity"

I imagine the food practices of a reasonably well-informed member of our society whose worldview gets sculpted by mass-media-propagated dominant discourse is that of a guilty pleasure. As stated in the "Told to Eat Its Vegetables..." article: " 'Eating vegetables is a lot less fun than eating flavor-blasted Doritos,' said Marcia Mogelonsly, a senior analyst for Mintel, a global marketing firm. 'You will always have to fight that'." That person who's food practices are sculpted by mass-media propagated dominant discourses will occasionally eat healthy food, but like Marcia Mogelonsly stated to the average person vegetables are more boring than junk food.

HW 4 - Your Families' Foodways

Growing up in a jewish household, there was an abundance of food my grandmother and grandfather prepared for my mom and her brother and sister. My grandmother and grandfather told my mom and her siblings to eat everything on their plate because their were children starving in the world, so my parents were guilted in to eating everything that was put in front of them. My grandfather was in the food business so he always brought home a lot of food, while my grandmother prepared the food. There was so much food in fact people would always come over to my moms house to eat. My grandmother would cook ethnically specific food such as: matzoh ball soup, chopped liver, roast chicken and noodle pudding.

Because of the way my mom was raised, she doesn't take food for granted and i was taught the same way. My dad makes meals almost every night and i am always encouraged to eat what my dad prepares rather than takeout. Although i was taught this i usually prefer to eat out since i am so used to eating with my parents. I believe that because my mom does not push the idea of not taking food for granted as much as my grandparents did, i view eating food differently. Also, todays society is different. There are a lot more fast food restaurants such as Mcdonalds and Wendys compared to when my mom was growing up so these restaurants often distract me from wanting to eat the food my parents prepare.

In our household, our family eats a variety of culturally different foods. One night we might eat pasta, or a hamburger. Another night we eat shrimp and vegetables, or asian style salmon. We usually eat breakfast together in the morning and we usually eat eggs and bacon. In the picture above of our fridge, you can clearly see soda (what i usually drink) and milk and cheese for the morning. My parents keep champagne in the fridge for special occasions and different types of jam for bread for breakfast.

HW 3 - Food - Fast Food Insights and Green Market Realizations

Mcdonalds and the union square greenmarket are very different in many ways. Both sell different types of food, both are processed different and sold differently but fast food's success comes from being more commercial, and cheaper. The most obvious of these difference between the two is that Mcdonalds is fast food (which is unhealthy) while the green market is considered to be healthy. The one similarity i noticed is that people of all ethnic groups ate at both locations. I think this is because no matter what race, certain foods appeal to all types of people. Here are some main differences i noticed between Mcdonalds and the union square green market.

The layout of Mcdonalds was a restaurant. In Mcdonalds i noticed a lot of signs for the food they were trying to sell. These signs had enlarged pictures of the food to show the texture and detail to make it look more appealing. This led me to think that this advertising played a major role in convincing customers to choose Mcdonalds over any other place to eat. The signs had large text, to signify the prices being lower than most fast food restaurants. The lighting of the restaurant was dim, and the layout was made to look fancy. From the way the chairs were arranged to the finish of the tables. Another thing i noticed was the clever names Mcdonalds gave the foods they were trying to sell (big mac,mcdouble).

The layout of the union square greenmarket was obviously a market, with rows of people with tents trying to sell organic products. Unlike Mcdonalds, the people that worked in the greenmarket selling the food were a lot more "people friendly". They had a positive attitude and even had free samples to give to customers. I noticed that unlike Mcdonalds the names for the products weren't trying to be anything fancy. When comparing the two places, i noticed that a big reason fast food is so successful is because the food is everywhere. On billboards, subway ads any where you look you'll find an ad for at least one fast food restaurant. Places to find organic products are more out of the way and are less "in our faces". The green market isn't in union square everyday.

Overall both the union square greenmarket and Mcdonalds are very different. Both sell different types of food, both are processed different and sold differently but fast food's success comes from being more commercial, and cheaper.

HW 2 - Food - Initial Thoughts

3 Aspects Of Food

Time

-When i eat lunch everyday i have about 30 minutes to eat. Im a slow eater, so i usually get something easy and quick to eat (a bagel most of the time). A bagel takes no time to eat (20 minutes the longest) because its small. Im not so hungry at lunch but if i do get really hungry i get something bigger and more expensive (chinese food). Since i wouldnt have enough time to eat it normally i eat it quick (im hungry enough to eat it quick anyway)

Money

-For Breakfast i always get something small and plain (bacon egg and cheese on a bagel) which doesnt cost me a lot. My parents give me lunch money, and its enough to hold myself over since i dont get anything over 7 dollars. But sometimes i will get something a lot cheaper if i want to save up my money. For dinner i usually get something a lot more expensive because by the end of the day i'm the hungriest. If my parents don't feed me i'll get pizza or chinese food (i keep my food options limited on most week days)

Location

-In the morning i always eat breakfast in my living room because taking the time out of my morning to get a bacon egg and cheese takes too long. For lunch i eat at the plaza on 22nd and broadway because it's conveniently a block away from the school and is just nice in general. On weekdays i always eat dinner at home whether my parents cooked me dinner or i ordered something.

Why

-As mentioned, i prefer bacon egg and cheese on a bagel, pizza, and chinese food for my usual meals. For all of these i have a very similar reason. These are all foods i grew up eating. Not because i think they are that much better than other foods i eat sometimes (cereal, halal food, pasta) but because they are the cheapest and i have been eating these foods for almost as long as i could walk.