“ARE WE WHAT WE EAT?”
• Can what we consume today be strongly related to our
identities or is eating just about satisfying our hunger?
• Food is necessary for our survival it is the nutritional
substance that the body needs to sustain our overall
health and keep the individual alive.
• The decision of what we choose and desire to consume
is also how we individually and characteristically
formulate the basis of our own identity.
• Theses choices and desires are considered to be ethics which
deal with values, the set of values that we learn to live by.
These decisions we know to be perceived as morally good
from those which are morally bad. The foods we choose to
eat give us personality; a basis for specific cultural identity
that can have an influence on our decision making and reflect
in our relationships, memories and emotional responses.
• Food has a value which goes beyond just feeding and
watering. Our routine of eating plays a motivating part in that
which makes up our reality.
• Life style changes that have occurred over many
decades have caused conceeding to different
consumption patterns, convenience foods and often the
alliance of the two, which have caused change in attitude
that contradict the influence of our cultural identity.
• The traditional value Goodness as a concept especially
being weakened, causing moral and ethical views that
have been lost rather rapidly.
• There is no question that so called life styles are causing
diseases such as diabetes, stroke, heart disease,
cancers and Obesity.
• “Our demand for meat, dairy, and refined carbohydrates,
our demand for these things, not our need, our want
drives individuals to consume way more calories than
are healthy for them and those calories are in foods that
cause disease not prevent disease.” (Bittman).
• Becoming increasingly more common, due to the
enormous awareness of environmental issues,
agribusiness and hyper consumption of food, the
reassessment of attitudes, norms, and beliefs of
individuals are shifting to that of healthier eating styles.
• Vegan, vegetarian and flexitarian life styles. A study
shown in Vegetarian times reported “Recent studies
have shown that 3.2percent of U.S. adults follow a
vegetarian base diet. Approximately .5 of those are
vegans, who consume no animal products and 10
percent of adults say they largely follow a vegetarianinclined diet.”(vegetariantimes) As well as, Locavores
who are becoming increasingly popular. Individuals who
have an interest in these locally produced foods that
have not moved long distances to market.
• As long as I can remember my personal values have
reflected an identity of needing to be as healthy as
possible and achieving longevity of life, I have explored
the option of flexitarian and also eating a diet according
to my blood type. It is a diet formulated to your individual
blood type in his book “Eat Right 4 Your Type” by Dr.
Peter D’Adamo. The internal chemistry reflected in your
blood type determines a clear plan of healthy foods that
are recommended for you to eat.
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•
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Katy Hartman, MS, RD, LDN, “I do like the saying "Food is Fuel." I
think when you fuel your body with the right fuel, you feel better and
work better. If you fuel your body with the wrong fuel, you won't work as
well. Just like a car - if you fill your car with the wrong gas, it won't run
properly.
Generally people who eat well, also take care of themselves in other
aspects of life -they are more inclined to exercise, they work hard, they
are productive members of society.
Following a holistic approach to food has always been what I have
known and is now my identity.”
Jill is a vegetarian, her background is of a healthy
life style and did include meat. Her inclination of
change was cause for an even healthier diet due to
health issues that arose causing her to come to
new awareness. When she decided to eliminate
meat she did not have much difficulty and reports a
higher energy level and improving health as feeling
much better without meat in her diet.
• Elvin is an athlete and a professional boxer, he considers himself a
Flexitarian, limiting the amount of meat he eats with replacement
proteins. He is conscious of his nutritional intake as it plays a big
role in his identity as a person as well as a professional boxer.
Sustaining necessary energy levels he needs to maintain weight
which are important in his training and competition. The life style diet
he learned growing up was not of this type of awareness, he had to
learn how to be a healthier eater.
• There are many things to say regarding
what we eat which involve an array of circumstances that
bring us to eat and drink the way we do. There are ethical
issues that also arise from the subject. Cultural identities
that have lost sight of their eating habits with ever-changing
dietary guidelines, marketing deception, and environmental
factors. The effects have been cause for new awareness’s
and cause new decision making on how to become
healthier when it comes to our consumption of food.
• “Because only once before has the fate of individual
people and the fate of all of humanity been so
intertwined. There was the bomb, and there's now. And
where we go from here is going to determine not only the
quality and the length of our individual lives, but whether,
if we could see the Earth a century from now, we'd
recognize it.” (Bitman).
Works Cited
• D'Adamo, Peter, and Catherine Whitney. Eat
Right 4 (for) Your Type: The
Individualized Diet Solution to Staying
Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your
Ideal Weight : 4 Blood Types, 4 Diets.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1996.
Print.
• Ayala, Elvin. "Professional Boxer, WBC
North American Middle Weight
Champion." Personal interview. 09 Nov.
2013.
• Bittman, Mark. “Whats Wrong With What We Eat.”
TED. lecture.
•
Bontonaki, Anna.,Konstadinos Mattas.
“Revealing the Values behind Convenience
Food Consumption.” appetite 55.(2010):
629-638. Academic Search Complete. Web.
Gardell, Jill. "College Student, Salisbury
University.” E-mail interview. 09 Nov. 2013.
• Hartman, Katy. "MS, RD, LDN." Personal interview.
12 Nov. 2013.
• "Vegetarianism In America." Vegetarian
Times. Bill Harper, Oct. 2013. Web. 12
Nov. 2013.