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

            Everyone’s talking about it. Food is being discussed everywhere, all over the TV, the newspaper, on the radio, and Internet, even the subway! Everyone seems to think we need to start eating healthier and, well those people who don’t aren’t really out there screaming in the streets about how we should eat more junk and food from hell! No there sitting behind their huge lavish desks and smoking cigars and scheming, scheming of new ways to keep their pockets fat. That is to say, I think the dominant discourse on food is that Americans need to start eating healthier.

            So great, we’ve got all theses PHDs and doctors and all sorts of other people telling us we need to eat healthy. And still McDonalds is making a fortune! Now I wonder why that is…  Because Bush screwed out economy to hell and everyone is broke! And since everyone is broke everyone can’t afford the healthy food, they have to buy the cheapest one and be thankful just to have food. This is the majority of America; and their not going to go without just to eat healthy. Then again, those people also probably don’t have healthcare and when they get sick from all they junk they eat, they’ll probably die. 

The problem there goes way deeper into the government than Bush, much deeper. It goes way back. How did we even get here?  Why did out government turn on us? When did they stop worrying about the people and start obsessing with their wallets? Was there ever a change? Or is that how America was founded, on greed? Pretty much, yes. Columbus was greedy; he stole the land and murdered, raped, and enslaved the natives to build America.  And he gets a national holiday! So now we see how we got here, we were always here. The American government has generally always been greedy, steeling from even its own people to be rich, to get the American dream.

But I digress, more on the topic of food, not only our government her in America is greedy but so is out mindset. And because everyone eats food, of course Americans found a way to exploit that to get rich. Cause that’s what America does. So now we have bad eating habits and bad food production, a broke majority, and all the rich people telling everyone they need to eat healthy. Meanwhile if they do get sick cause of the food they probably don’t stand a chance because no one will pay for their treatment, certainly not the government, who seems to be the cause of all the problems from the very start!

I realize this went sort of off topic, but it is on topic, cause it’s all related. It’s all stemming from the same seed. America’s greed. And it doesn’t look like its going to get better any time soon. In short, were screwed. 

HW4: My families foodways

            My Grandparents were raised during the Great Depression when food was scarce and anything was welcome, so their eating habits probably were inconsistent and limited. When my mother was a child, my Grandpa had made a ton in the stock market and he was a successful Broadway accountant, so they lived well, I’m sure my mom never went hungry as a child.  My Grandma mostly cooked Jewish/Russian foods, seeing as her mother had come on the boat from Russia, and that’s what my mother was raised eating.  I don’t know if other people in America were really eating unhealthy yet at that point but my mom wasn’t because she was only served home cooked, family recipes.

            That healthy eating as a child is probably why my mom raised me and my sister to eat fairly healthy. I remember ordering out a lot not so much home cooked, but I do remember not being allowed to eat junk foods and really unhealthy things. When we got older and would go places with out or mom we would eat all the junk we could, but the habit of good eating was already instilled in us. As a preteen/ teenager going to lunch around SOF and having a limited amount of money I ate a lot of pizza, not the healthiest stuff, but not fast food.

            My Great-grandma and my grandma and my moms eating habits defiantly influenced mine. I seems that people who were raised on eating what ever they could get and not what was healthy would continue that habit, since I was raised to be healthy, probably because I am still close to mu fully Russian ancestors, who raised my Grandma, who raised my mom, who raised me, so the less American way of eating is still in play.  

            Presently, I would rather eat something organic and healthy than any thing else. Especially knowing now where all the food we get comes from, all those hellish “farms” and slaughterhouses. But we cant even know for sure if what were eating isn’t from one of those places. We can’t know how much pesticides were sprayed on our foods, or just how much genetically modifying is really going on. It makes me want to just stop eating! But of course that would be counter productive…

My Fridge

HW3: Green Market Vs. McDonalds

Today talking to people in both McDonalds and the Union square green market I got some more insight into what I had already believed. Upon walking into McDonalds the atmosphere is one of greasy food, hurried eating and slightly off smelling people…everything on the menu is hundreds of calories. When we approached people to ask them some questions one gave us a rather nasty attitude and the other said it was convenient, that’s why the ate there. Just as I had suspected. Also these people didn’t look like the wealthiest of people, dressed in slightly dirty old clothes and not looking cleanly groomed. In union square you get a lot of homeless people, junkies, kids and teens, and as someone who had spent a lot of time in both union square as a whole and in that McDonalds, those are the people you see most often in that McDonalds. They go there because they can afford it, its right there, and to taste buds that haven’t had a lot of organic food it tastes good.

The people we saw in the farmers market were just the opposite. They were all mostly friendly and gladly answered our questions. Generally, again based on my previous experiences in Union Square, the people I described in the previous paragraph avoid the green market going around the square to avoid the crowds. The people who were and usually are shopping there are more well dressed, groomed, and grown than those who go to McDonalds and this probably has to do with why they are there buying organic food instead of that fake junk. In the grand scheme of most people income the green market is probably affordable, but to the many people who don’t have money it is an unattainable option.

If healthy food was offered at affordable prices to everyone, even those homeless junkies and kids could eat healthy with out emptying their pockets. This would not only probably lead to healthier homeless people and I in turn less un acknowledged deaths on New York’s mean streets, but also a healthier generation of children and in turn and healthier future.

When you go other countries you can taste the difference between the American foods.  In France even the McDonalds tastes healthier. Less fatty and greasy and salty and sugary. Even McDonalds! It really makes me wonder why they are poisoning America? And I quickly find the answer. It’s these capitalists. But do they not realize, that all that money will mean nothing if society should die! If they continue to force this poison upon us to fill up their pockets and garages and closets. How come a 17-year-old girl and figure that out and these supposed leaders cant?

HW2- FOOD

            It’s an interesting affair, today’s food industry. Here in America you see people mostly eating fast foods and various other unhealthy things. Most people would say they eat that because its what they can afford. My whole like my mother has struggled to keep the food in the house organic but nowadays you don’t really know what you’re getting. You never really know if this chicken grew up on a farm or if it was raised in a dark warehouse crowded by way too many other chickens in unhealthy conditions surviving off hormones and antibiotics. I think it’s usually the former. It utterly disgusts me. I like eating meat, I was a vegetarian for two years and I got tired of it, but when I think about where this stuff im eating is coming from I want to give up meat again.

            It also really bothers me that it’s not even really and option in this country, to have clean healthy 100% organic foods, no GMO’s and antibiotic raised cows. If you want to eat healthy which probably isn’t really healthy at all you’ve got to spend a ton of money, which brings me back to my first point. Most people go for those fast foods and disgusting options because that’s what’s readily available to them so its what they eat. That disgusts me even more, on top of all the things America isn’t doing for its people (who aren’t rich white men that is) Americas people are not being provided with acceptably healthy foods.

            I will admit that I am not the healthiest person, but I do try to eat healthy and I personally think organic food tastes millions of times better than the fake steroid stuff. This summer I was on a friends 100% organic farm. We walked out into the field as the sun blazed on our shoulders, I put my hand over my eyes to block it and squinted to the other end of the field where we were headed. It seemed like miles in that heat. We walked along the rows passing eggplants and cucumbers and all sorts of delicious smells and sights. We came to our destination finally, drenched in sweat and utterly parched, at the melon patch. We walked up the rows scanning the leaves for a big green pill-shaped watermelon. We found the perfect one that even looked juicy and was hot from the sun. Impatient to eat it we set off in search of a knife, back through the field to the house. Before we had so much as cleared a foot outside the field the melon fell, breaking in two. It looked so juicy and ripe and red and delicious that we didn’t even stop to think before sinking in out teeth right then and there and devouring the whole watermelon as the juice dripped all over us and quenched us of out heat and thirst. I think that was one of the most delicious things ive ever eaten. Except maybe some home cooked gourmet French food, but everything’s delicious there.

I guess it partially comes from living in a city but I’m sure most people in America still eat that unhealthy GMO crap and fast food, unless they live on or around a farm or in the middle of no where. I just really wish that there was that good farm stuff available everywhere. I hate that for most people in America that good stuff just isn’t even an option…