Eating with the mind – the key to a healthy family
life.
Humans have an evolving relationship with food. This
relationship demonstrates our cultural heritage. Unlike other animals, humans
are selective about their food; they relish their food with their minds as much
as their mouths, as they eat. Various cultures have historically developed
their cultural attachments to food that is unique to those cultures. Unlike
other omnivores, humans have their food cravings and aversions and a compulsive
need to label food as good or bad, or hot or cold (as in many Asian cultures).
As we all know Asian countries offer a wide variety of foods and food
preparations. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Thai foods
are different from North Indian, Pakistani, South Indian, and South Asian foods
and food preparations. Middle Eastern countries have their own food types and
food preparations. Similarly, there is a wide variety of food types and food
preparations in European countries. People of United Kingdom, Belgium, France,
Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Portugal have their own food habits,
culinary preparations, and specialties. Eastern European countries, mainly
Norway, Sweden and Denmark have their own food preparations. North and South
Americas, Canada, and the famous tourist Islands surrounding Americas have
their own unique local food as well as exotic foods that satisfy the palates of
tourists. Russia, Australia and New Zealand have their own indigenous and
cultural food affiliations as most other countries and cultures. Similarly, the
type of food eaten and food preparations widely differ in different parts of
Africa, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Yemen. In summary, all the countries that
make up the world (195 -249 of them) have their own cultures, cultural
heritages as well as unique food eating and food preparation methods.
Although communication among the people living in
different countries of the world has improved after the advent of the Internet,
the world is still the same good old world where people belonging to different
countries, races, and cultures, speaking many different languages continue to
live together , and at the same time apart preserving their own social,
economic and cultural identities. Food eating habits of different people, the
main focus of this paper, significantly contributes to their different cultural
identity. Given below is an attempt to understand the way how food impacts our
relationships in the “global village:”
It all happens from the time of birth of children into
the world. One common thread that connects all humans, both men and women of
the world to food begins at the very beginning of life. Humans like most other
mammals possessed with mammary glands functional in females, feed their
offspring with milk produced in their own body. This may perhaps explain as to
why little children similar to baby animals have a strong attachment to and
dependency on their mothers during their formative years of life. In some
cultures, human babies are breastfed by their mothers until they are five to
six years old whereas in the western world where baby food is a lucrative
industry, some mothers breastfeed their babies only for about six to twelve
months. The child psychologists believe that weaning babies from breast milk
early make them more independent, especially when it comes to toilet training
of young children. However, people belonging to different cultures have
different customs and ideas regarding the type of food that breast
feeding-mothers should eat. Some cultures, especially in Asia, have strict
social customs and rules that mothers should follow regarding the type of food
they should eat and avoid eating during the period in which they breastfeed
their children.
In countries where food is scarce (this is a problem
with most countries in the world), food plays a major role in family relations.
Historically when humans were hunters, men did the hunting and women did the
cooking of the food brought home by the men who protected them from all sorts
of dangers. This is still the case to this day in some societies of the world
where women and men have different roles to play in family and social life. In
these societies, women were home makers, and the family members shared the food
however little food they had. Most of the time the children went hungry in such
families, and they did not have a variety of food to choose from. Most children
growing up under such hardships lived a very hard life, and not every child was
lucky enough to live long and grow up under such hardships and survive. But
those who survived such hardships in life, just like those who did survive the
great depression in the western world developed a totally different outlook
towards life. Food seems to have had a strong binding on these people’s family
life. They learned to conserve the very little food they had that they shared
with every member of the family. Together they prayed holding their hands and
blessed their food before they consumed it. Foods were not consumed alone and
in isolation as some people choose to do in the present time. It was customary
for all family members to gather and have their meals together. They also
avoided eating and snacking in between. This is because food was rare and
precious, and no one growing in such societies and cultures wasted any food.
Although food was scarce in these societies and
cultures, visiting family members and guests were not only treated with respect
but with home cooked meals. Rejecting the meals offered by the host was
considered not only an insult but a rejection of the host/s who offered the
meal. People belonging to certain cultures tend to take such acts very
personally. Therefore, people who grew up in such societies and cultures make a
careful decision who they want to have meals with and who they want to avoid
having meals with. In countries like United States of America where people of
different races and ethnicities are supposed to merge and melt together, people
hardly realize that certain cultural traits die hard at least in the minds of
immigrating families who are supposed to merge together in a happy melting pot.
Culinary preferences tell us a good deal about human
culture. The ancestors of most immigrants to the United States traveled from
Europe, Africa, and Asia brought their favorite plants, foods and culinary
practices along with them. Ethnic food markets where various tropical and
subtropical plants and foods are available attract not only the ethnic
communities living in the surrounding areas but also others who are willing to
pay a higher price for healthy food. Most cities in the U.S. have Hispanic,
Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese communities living together recreating
their traditional cultures in their new settlements. The traditional food that
they are used to eating and their culinary practices seem to deeply bind the members
of these communities together even after they had lived away from their
original native lands for generations. The same is true of the German, Finnish
and Norwegian people who populated the northwestern parts of the United States.
They love to prepare and eat Lutefisk even to this day.
One important reason for these ethnic communities to
continue to use the same food is the health value that they attribute to the
food that they eat. Another reason is the taste that they are used to that has
a way of satisfying not only their palates but their minds as they eat the type
of food that they ate during the time when they grew up in their native lands.
Most people who grew up in the east and Middle Eastern countries relish eating
spicy foods. They take as much time to prepare their food as much as they take
to enjoy eating the food with family friends or whomever they choose to eat
their food with. Many of their recipes contain a variety of different spices.
Asian countries are well known from the earliest historical times for producing
various spices that attracted early merchants who used silk routes for
international trade. Later during the16th century Portuguese merchants went in
search of spices and Christians in the Orient. The Dutch, British, and French
invaders followed suit and build empires colonizing these spice producing
countries during the 17th- 19th centuries. Ayurvedic medicine that focused on
prevention of diseases emphasized the importance of plant material and food as
medicine. To this day some of the herbal medicines of the orient are sold in
the western world.
There is a remarkable contrast however of food
production, culinary practices, and food consumption in the developed world.
These practices and food habits are one of the factors that seem to contribute
to weakening of the family ties of the people who live in the developed fast
moving world where fast food and restaurants have successfully replaced home
cooking. In many homes of the developed world today there is no such thing as
food preparation. It is a matter of heating up frozen food taken out of a
freezer and microwaving it. Most adults do it and most children do it. In many
homes family members do not get together or wait for all family members to
gather to have meals together. Many of them including the children eat on the
run in a hurry. Fast food restaurants are open on seven days and 24 hours. Food
plays no role in family life at all. Most children or adults for that matter do
not have any idea how to cook a traditional meal from scratch. Children have
their lunch at school and working parents have their lunch in cafeterias and
restaurants.
Although some fast food restaurants are concerned
about the health issues related to the food that they sell, the responsibility
of health relating to food is passed to the consumer. If consumers want to eat
supersized version of meals or drinks, it is their responsibility and they
cannot sue the restaurant owner for their own behavior. Sadly, some of the food
containing fat sold in these fast food and other restaurants is tasty, and some
of the drinks are addictive. What many people do not realize however is that
fast food industry and restaurants have effectively competed with families and
family oriented life style and won the race by taking away food and food
preparation from the family that was a very strong thread that used to bind
family members together.
References:
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