Short Essay 1

The Power of Food

Food is an underappreciated influence in the choices we make in our daily lives. Our connections with food are all different and each of us has different personal meanings attached to certain foods, based on past experiences, geographical locations, and religions and cultural backgrounds.  Food has even shaped history and influenced how our society functions, mostly without our recognition of the power this resource has.

Food has more power than an average person in a modern world gives credit to. Often it seems because it is so easily available to us, we forget how valuable it is.  Because it is such a necessity and having access to food determines survival or not, it is a resource that has had the capacity to change history in such a profound way. The new technology alone food has motivated us to create has shaped our world and the events of history more than any other need has. It can be argued that more efficient production of food was the major reason the modern world is organized in the manor it is today. With the increase in technology, productivity of crops rose, and this allowed people to have time outside of the field to turn their attention to other inventions that led to the industrial revolution. Third world countries that have not or are unable to grow food productively enough to allow for time outside of the field are in the seemingly never ending battle to survive. Of course a starving family in the third world will value a loaf of bread more than the average family in a developed country where we choose from a wall full of different varieties in a store. The same loaf of bread will wield more influential power where, geographically, people value it more. An example is working in low-wage jobs in factories that, if one did not need the money to buy food, one might not be so motived to work in. 

Food also has power and value to an individual, and different types of food can mean different things to a person. It has a strong tie to religion, something else that has the power to cause wars and change history. In an article we read for class the author of “Eating White” talks about his mother’s strange eating habit of eating all white foods. The author had a theory about his mother’s attraction. He believes her religion (Catholicism) and the purity symbolism the catholic religion places on the color white subconsciously attracts her to “purify” her body.  This was an interesting theory, and when the author described his experience of eating a communion wafer I realized my own connection to the same type of food. I love bread, and I use love instead of like for an honest emphasis. Usually the bread at the beginning of dinner consists of about a third of my whole dinner. When I dine out with my family they take one piece and split it amongst themselves and pass the basket to me! And I always remember being this way. It makes me wonder if all of the images and emphasis of importance on bread I saw and heard during church services (that my parents brought me to even as a baby) influenced me into loving bread. Bread is so ingrained into the religion that during the Lord’s Prayer (something said at church every Sunday and nearly every church function) we thank God for providing us our “daily bread”, and it is consumed in communion with high importance.

Then I considered my community and the cultural background it has, a small agricultural town where roughly 85% are from direct German ancestry, and realized our average dinner plate consists of meat, bread and potatoes.  This also must have influenced me and my eating habits, which I am glad to say have shifted to include more vegetables and fruit now that I make my own choices. But I noticed that, going home for spring break, the meals my mother cooks mostly include meat and potatoes, a dinner most Germans would approve of. The author of “Eating White” also discusses his cultural connection to a special type of cheese that is popular in Britain, where he grew up. He is frustrated at it’s rarely in the United States and craves it because of his cultural background.

Food is also linked to personal identity, and who you consider yourself to be. In another reading for the class “Home Run” the author the author connects his identity as a Korean to how he cooks and the types of food he eats. As a child, his mother would cook for him strictly Korean dishes, thus where he learned to love such food. However as a teenager (a time where fitting in is a priority) he pulled away from his Korean identity, and in turn Korean food. Instead he wants to fit in with his classmates, mostly Americans from birth, and the family goes so far as to buy a separate fridge for him to store his American foods.  However when his parents died in a tragic car accident and he began to cook for a restaurant, he found his pride in his ethnicity and his Korean influences in his food both increase. He attached his cultural identity to the food he eats and honors his parents by vowing to raise his son up eating Korean food, thus making him aware of his Korean identity also.

Whether focusing on the influence food has in global or individualistic terms, it cannot be denied that food has extreme influence in our daily lives. Besides the historical importance food as a necessity holds, it is a large part of what we consider to be our personal identity and culture, creates ingenuity and motivates the creation of new technology, and is connected to memories of the people we love.