In conclusion, Mead expresses that the long term goal is "to alter American food habits so that they are based upon tradition which embodies science and to do so in such a way that food habits at any period are sufficiently flexible to yield readily to new scientific findings". To accomplish this people in charge of meal plans need to take responsibility, new findings need to be readily translated to the head chef of every house hold, a link between education, communication, and new discoveries must be made, and an increase to the supply and adequate distribution of food must happen. With all that, progress can be made. However, the integration of all these techniques is the most imperative problem. And only with that integration can we be on our way to changing those bad food habits and making the American culture a healthier one.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Food Habits
In "The Problem of Changing Food Habits", Margaret Mead focuses on what it takes to change the food habits of the American culture. Mead explains that "food habits are seen as the culturally standardized set of behaviors in regard to food manifestation by individuals who have been reared within a given cultural tradition" ,and there are two factors that affect these habits. One "interaction with the food producing and food distributing systems", and two " the combination of food may exert a certain degree of coercion upon physiological responses". With this in mind, a committee with a background in anthropology, set out to discover, speculate, understand, and find the solutions to the problems of changing food habits. By using pure and applied sciences they conduct many different kind of experiments. For example, a minute survey of food eaten by adults at any given time, or information collected from groups of people in a general culture, and during the beginning stages of a child's life. Research has also been done on how to feed other countries in need, influences of family life, nutritional substitute vs. cultural substitutes, and community organization. Meal patterns, shopping habits, and food preparation were also found to play a major role in the overall problem of food habits.
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In "The Problem of Changing Food Habits" Margaret Mead develops the importance of using both pure and applied sciences in order to understand what foods we choose to eat and the food habits of the American Culture. Mead explains that "food habits are seen as the culturally standardized set of behaviors in regard to food manifestation by individuals who have been reared within a given cultural tradition" ,and there are two factors that affect these habits. One "interaction with the food producing and food distributing systems", and two " the combination of food may exert a certain degree of coercion upon physiological responses". With this in mind, a committee with a background in anthropology, set out to discover, speculate, understand, and find the solutions to the problems of changing food habits. Their main goal was to take pure science (knowledge already known) and orchestrate this information so that one can apply science and discover ways to solve the issues of changing food habits of the American culture.
ReplyDeleteThey then conducted many different kinds of experiments. For example, a minute survey of food eaten by adults at any given time, or information collected from groups of people in a general culture, and during the beginning stages of a child's life. Research has also been done on how to feed other countries in need, influences of family life, nutritional substitute vs. cultural substitutes, and community organization. Meal patterns, shopping habits, and food preparation were also found to play a major role in the overall problem of food habits.
In conclusion, Mead expresses that the long term goal is "to alter American food habits so that they are based upon tradition which embodies science and to do so in such a way that food habits at any period are sufficiently flexible to yield readily to new scientific findings". However, every culture is different and each one eats differently. So therefore each solution for that culture will be different. Mead argues that we cannot be specific to each subculture in America because we cannot only ask "how do we change food habits?" To really accomplish this, people in charge of meal plans in every culture need to take responsibility, new findings need to be readily translated to the head chef of every house hold, a link between education, communication, and new discoveries must be made between all teh different cultures, and an increase to the supply and adequate distribution of food must happen. With all that, progress can be made. However, the integration of all these techniques is the most imperative problem. And only with that integration can we be on our way to changing those bad food habits and making the American culture a healthier one.