HW 6 - Food Diary

Day 1

Lunch: 3 piece chicken tenders with fries from Popeye's

Like every other fast food restaurant, Popeye's food have more calories than home cooked food. The reason I went to Popeye's that day instead of another place such as Subway, was because my friend said that she had a sudden craving for Popeye's chicken so we all ended up going there. The taste of Popeye's chicken was the same as any other fast food places', greasy but delicious. For some people, eating in fast food restaurants is more of a habit than a random choice. I saw a lot of people that I see every time I go to that Popeye's branch. For me however, I really don't care where I go for lunch, I even consider going to the school cafeteria just because I feel too lazy to go outside. Food is food. As long it isn't spoilt or po

isoned, I don't really care how it tastes. But for the people that have extra picky tongues, I think they always need to go to one place or eat one type of food because that is how their brain works and my brain works differently.

Yellow is the worldwide accepted color to represent food or hunger. Restaurants all over the world use the color yellow to lure their customers in and one thing that I realized about Popeye's for the first time on that day was that everything in that place is yellow or a shade of yellow. Yellow also represents warmth, sunshine, cheer, and happiness. These forms of subliminal messages are being used by food companies all around the world to attract their customers and make them more money.

Dinner: Rice, fish, lentil, and various spices.

My typical and favorite meal. Every night that my mom servers this meal, is a good night for me. I'll stay in a good mood and I also noticed that it sometimes helps me focus because I'm not pondering over what I had for dinner since it's so simple. I'm not quite sure what the calorie count for this meal is specifically but I'm sure it's not too high. This meal has a fair amount of carbohydrates because of the rice but it also has a lot of protein from the fish (or chicken some nights). Lentil and spices are just there for flavor.

Day 2:

Lunch: Vegetable Burrito

I wouldn't normally eat a vegetable burrito, but I had to pack some sort of lunch for my internship so this was the best I could come up with. This turned out to be a good choice because I could carry it without hassle. Nutritionally, this was also a good choice. I had some rice, spinach, beans, and potatoes in it and it tasted fantastic. Overall, I felt good about this lunch because it was not only tasty but also very healthy. Typically, American style burritos are large and stuffed with a lot of ingredients. I don't like those types of burritos because they are usually full of grease and they are also hard to manage. I think a lot of people like those better than my style because they allow you to eat a lot of stuff at the same type instead of taking it slow and actually enjoying what they are eating.

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

Food has been in discourses for decades, but the discussions have reached a new precedent in the last 5 years. Eating healthy is the dominant discourse right now, and has been for as long as I can remember. There have always been TV shows showing the different types of food that you can eat to lose weight or to maintain a good cholesterol level. I have never seen a show that tells people to eat more so they can be unhealthy. Surprisingly enough, even though the major discourse has been to make people eat healthy food, the rates of obesity have increased astonishingly over the past five years. The average percentage of people with obesity per state in the year 2004, was 20-24 (link). That number drastically increased to 25%-29% in 2009 (link). As to why I think this is, I do not think that this is because people do not listen. It is mostly because of the economy. Fast food restaurants are cheaper and quicker, so why should people spend more money and time on healthy food?

People aren’t usually taken seriously if they don’t posses the qualities that qualifies a person as an “expert”. You have to have a college degree, because other wise, you are just dumb. Yet surprisingly there many people such as Dhirubhai Ambani, who was a High School dropout but now is a billionaire businessman. So if a college degree doesn’t really make smarter, then why aren’t dropouts taken seriously? Is it because
“PhD” looks better in the captions then “Personal Experience”? Is that why maybe the movie Super Size Me wasn’t a big success? Morgan Spurlock, the writer and the actor in the movie, tries to understand the influence of the fast food industry by exploring the consequences of a diet consisting of only McDonald’s food for one month. He nearly died making the movie and was awarded with 5 Oscars for “unveiling the lies that the fast food restaurants tell us”, yet because of some bizarre reason, the fast food industry kept on booming and made Spurlock’s movie as useless as any other movie.

The main stream media is the dominant power in the discourse. They have been trying to “influence” peoples’ lives for as look as it has existed. Their main purpose is not to tell people about the things that can affect the public’s lives, as was the original plan, but to tell people how to live their lives. There isn’t a single person in the United States that doesn’t know the health risks of eating in fast food restaurants or eating junk foods. Everyone here, thanks to the media, are very well informed about everything that’s going on around them. “Everyone knows that you shouldn’t eat junk food and you should exercise, but the environment makes it so difficult that fewer people can do these things, and then you have a public health catastrophe.” (Brownell) Brownell has a doctorate in psychology, is among a number of leading researchers who are proposing large-scale changes to food pricing, advertising and availability. She is the obvious “expert” in healthy eating and people would listen to her. According to Brownell, people cannot start living a healthier life style unless their environment changes. She is obviously referring to the fact that the streets of most of the major states in US are littered with fast food restaurants. Since fast food is a trillion dollar industry, it is highly unlikely that fast food restaurant owners will just shut down because they want their nation to be healthier. Only other solution; move to a place with no fast food restaurants. There isn’t a single state or single county even in the US that doesn’t have a fast food restaurant. So is the “expert” suggesting that the only way we can live better is by leaving the country?

RE: HW 4 - Your Families' Foodways

In my family, food is considered a blessing, its not necessarily sacred, but it’s something that should be honored and not taken for granted. This has been one of my family’s foodways for generations. According to my dad, the same foodways that we follow today was followed by my great grand parents from both sides and passed down to my grand parents from both sides and then passed down to my parents. I am expected to pass it down as well to my kids as to keep the tradition alive in my family at least.

The reason why my parents expect me to pass the tradition down is because everyone Bangladesh are very traditional. It doesn't matter who you are, you will eat the same thing. Farmers to government officials. Beggars to business men. In Bangla, there is a word used to explain this, rucchi. Rucchi means something like habits but only related to food. Bengali's say that a their rucchi can never change, no matter where they go, they will always crave for rice with lentil and chicken.

Most of the food I eat is cooked. I have almost never eaten raw food except some rare occasion with friends outside of school, but never with my parents. Each and every type of food in my house is cooked and prepared with the utmost care. When my mom gets into the kitchen, its as if shes in a zone and no one better disturb her. One more thing that's part of the Bengali rucchi is spices. All our food must be cooked with proper spices grown from the ground. My mom tried artificial spices ones but it just tasted disgusting to me. If any of my regular meals doesn't have proper spices, it doesn't taste good. This rarely ever happens because my mom is a terrific cook.

By living in New York, I have gotten used to eating all the different kinds of food that is available here: Chinese, Italian, French, Greek, and many many others. I will never mind eating any of these food but I don't think I can ever survive on them for a month straight. I will crave for my Bengali food and end up going to a Bengali restaurant. I know for a fact that my parents would never survive on other types of food for a month straight. And as for my grand parents and my great grand parents, they probably wouldn't survive a week.

HW 3

As our class took an educational trip to Taco Bell, as I was walking through Taco Bell, I tried to see things that I wouldn't normally notice. Since it was midday on a week day, there weren't too many people sitting and eating. I looked around to see that there weren't many staff members there either, this was weird, after all, it was midday on a week day. As I was moving around the restaurant trying to build a mental image in my head, I noticed all the different signs of how the Taco Bell food is irresistibly mouth watering and also unbelievably cheap! Since fast food restaurants are usually cheap, a lot of young people go there. The money high school students get from their parents are usually enough to buy food from places like Taco Bell or McDonalds. High school students also have less free time than adults and fast food restaurants are just perfect for them. Young people also have a higher metabolism rate than older people do so digesting fast food is a lot easier for them. Fast food targets old people less because of their inability, their weak body, and their smaller income. In conclusion, young people eat more fast food than old people do.

Fast food contains a lot of cholesterol, which increases the rate of heart attacks and high blood pressure, especially in old people. I definitely prefer fast food because of all the reasons that are posted in the first paragraph and also because like almost every other teen, I prefer taste over health. People in general usually like to eat what they like and it is very unlikely that this behavior will change just because it is a health risk. Alas, there is still hope, humans evolve and we might be able to fight our urges to eat tasty food over healthier food.

The world around us is shaped by food. Food unites people in both times of sorrow and joy. Almost every festival in every culture and every country is celebrated with food. Having lived in multiple culturally diverse cities, I noticed one big similarity; all the cities are heavily dependent on agriculture. Yet whenever someone thinks about a farmer or a worker at a slaughterhouse, people usually assume that they are an uneducated or a heartless killer. They never think of how much support they provide the country's day to day life and economy. As George W. Bush once said, "Food is the foundation of everyone’s security.” USA is very lucky that it is one of the few countries that can mass produce the food that have high demand from its people. If this country ceases to provide this service to its people, that is when the country will be completely helpless.

 

One of my priorities concerning food would be to eat healthier and to eat in a controlled manner. As a child of parents born in South Asia, I have been exposed to rich foods ever since I developed proper taste buds. In Bangladesh, it is tradition for every family to eat rice with spicy chicken and lentil for lunch and dinner, every day. Some villagers eat rice for even breakfast but they are limited to only rice. Since they are the ones who produce it, and they produce in excess, they have abundance amounts of rice but not enough money to buy any side dishes.

As I mentioned before, my parents are from South Asia and their eating habits are the same as back in Bangladesh. Only with the diversity of New York City would this ever be possible, even after living here living here for 2 years, my parents have no trouble at all cooking the same exact food as one would cook in Bangladesh. My typical food is rice with chicken, lentil, peppers and sometimes fish or beef. Surprisingly, my typical food is also my ideal food. This may be surprising for many people because the ideal food of people is usually something they eat rarely not on a daily basis. Just because it is something that I eat on a daily basis, does not mean I do not appreciate it. I do not think food is sacred, but it is something that definitely deserves a lot of respect.

One of my favorite things in the world is the taste and smell of a properly cooked dish of chicken with curry (something that only my mom seems to be able to do). Whenever my family sits down to eat together, which is a rare occasion nowadays because of the invention of the Television, my father always reminds me how I used to go with him to the market in Bangladesh but do not do it anymore. When ever he says that, I get reminded of the bustles of the marketplace in Bangladesh. As I'm writing this essay, I just realized how important food really is to me and to the community as a whole. I can not imagine a world without food. Only now do I realize how devastating a famine is on a population...