Originally
my plan was to teach everyone about mushrooms and fungal networks due
to my deep fascination with the topic. But after speaking in a panel
about eating disorders a few days ago, I decided that there was
something else I wanted to talk about for the last day of class: our
relationship with food. Throughout the class, we’ve often talked about
our relationship with food. Whether we examine its production or
distribution, many deep-rooted problems become evident.
For my lesson, I wanted to not only focus on the large structures that
constitute our food systems, but on the framework through which we view
food. I want to breakdown and talk about the modern discourse
surrounding food in the United States and how it allows
the structures that we’ve so carefully analyzed for the past ten weeks
to continue existing. For those of you who were raised outside of the
U.S., I am greatly interested in your perspective regarding the
differences and similarities between the philosophies
of food here and elsewhere. I think it would also be interesting to
discuss the effects of globalization on food philosophy both here and
abroad.
I mentioned in the first
paragraph that my interest in this topic was sparked at a panel I spoke
at last week. On the panel, I spoke about my eating disorder, which
manifested most strongly at the beginning of my high
school career. If any of you have questions in class about my experience
and how it relates to what we’ve learned about in the course, feel free
to ask me in class. The two topics are intertwined so complexly
inextricably that it would take a Yurackallhua-Incan-giant-corn-sized*
novel to fully explicate my thoughts on the matter. In regards to food
philosophy, I feel that the concept of eating and abstention from eating
is often viewed as a source of exercising and maintaining control over
the physical and psychological self. For a
brief background on eating disorders and their prevalence among various
demographics, this link has a few statistics:
The stats in this article
primarily relate to racial/ethnic differences in eating disorder rates
within the U.S. The prominence of social factors in eating disorder
rates (relating to race, gender, ethnicity, etc.)
displays how cultural philosophies can affect eating patterns. Eating
disorders are often viewed as the inverse of and a response to elevating
obesity rates worldwide, but this is far from the truth. I would argue
that there is not a simple cause-and-effect
relationship between the two; the two phenomena are both symptoms of a
detrimental philosophy of food that is suffusing across the planet.
Unfortunately there is little research available that compares eating
disorders rates around the world. But due to differences
among obesity rates across the globe, we may be able to infer that there
are also radical differences in in regards to eating disorders across
the globe (see chart below)…or maybe that’s too big of a leap. This is a
question that I would like to discuss in
class.
So how do eating disorders directly or indirectly relate to farming?
For me, it all comes back to
the relationship between food and ourselves. In communal settings, food
is about sharing, nurturing, enjoyment, and our relationship with the
rest of the biological world. In individualistic
societies such as our own, food intake becomes a test: a way to prove
how much or how little we can eat. Within four years, I both harmfully
abstained from food and harmfully ingested copious amounts of
food in wing-eating challenges…these were both
rooted in our philosophical concept of self-worth. In mainstream U.S.
society, we are not complete as our self. We have to become the ideal of
our self in order to become whole, and one way this manifests is
through food.
In our current philosophy,
food is not only a way by which to express control over our self, but
also to give our body the proper nourishment to be efficient within
society. The expansion of nutritional science over
the past few decades is indicative of this. I’m not denying that one of
food’s most crucial purposes is to supply us with macro and
micronutrients; in my opinion, this assertion would be absurd. What I am saying
is that the modern trend of essentializing
various foods as a source of a specific nutrient is harmful. When you go
to many supermarkets, each type of produce has a sign that lists the
micronutrients that can be received from that type of produce. This is
not a problem in and of itself, but it is
part of the framework that food is simply an instrument whereby we
can attain the perfect balance of nutrients. Nutritional science has,
however, helped many people, including myself, know what nutritional
deficiencies might be ailing them. But I see the
modern study of nutrition as a band-aid for the problems that arose out
of the shift in U.S. food culture that occurred in the last century.
This might explain the drastic shifts in what is deemed a healthy and
balanced diet by the scientific community. The
below article breaks-down the changes in dietary recommendations of the
USDA in the past century. The article may be from Wikipedia, but most of
it draws directly from USDA sources.
In the same
vein, I’m sure that most of you are aware of the popularity of various
diet fads. One example of this is the preponderance of gluten-free
diets. If you search “gluten-free”, “gluten”, or “bread bowl” on
Google (okay, maybe not that last one), you’ll find thousands of
articles that expound the benefits of living without the artist formerly
known as Gluten the Great. Here is an example of one such listicle
(that’s the actual name of this article format) that
gives five AWESOME benefits of going gluten-free…it sounds EPIC!
Here is a WebMD article that gives a more nuanced approach to gluten-free eating:
There are certainly
individuals with Celiac Disease and many who have a gluten intolerance,
but to say that completely abstaining from any product that contains
gluten will help everybody is, to me, sensationalism.
Once the trend went mainstream a few years ago, it became indelibly
inscribed into the public consciousness. Whether or not the various
articles have any scientific backing, the ideas found within them still
become prominent in our culture. There are many other
examples of diet fads that can be discussed in class.
There may be a lot of
subtopics discussed in this post, but for me, they all relate back to
our philosophies and frameworks of food. For our discussion, try to
analyze your own philosophy of food. Many of you may not
have one that you are aware of, but nonetheless, I’m sure you have one!
Have you had any experience with radical diet shifts, whether they
involve specific foods or food in general? I understand that this may be
a sensitive topic for many people, so by all
means, only share what you feel comfortable sharing. And to encapsulate
all we have discussed in this course: how can altering our philosophy of
food ameliorate the structural, social, or psychological problems we
face as a society?
*one of the largest varieties of corn in terms of kernel size and stalk height…at least according to the internet
Thanks for posting, Sam! These conversations are really difficult for me, but they’re extremely important.
ReplyDelete***** Some of this content could potentially be triggering and does talk about disordered eating; please nobody feel obligated to read *****
I don’t believe in diets. I’ve gotten some weird looks in the past for saying this, but it’s true. I’ve never understood the idea that a temporary change in consumption is somehow going to permanently alter a person’s weight and/or health. (To be really clear: I’m not saying that people can’t make substantial long-term changes in what they eat. This can be really beneficial! I just think that the idea of a temporary diet is really strange.) There are so many fad diets out there that, to be frank, I think are ridiculous. I have a friend who was on a diet where she couldn’t eat apples, grapes, or lots of other fruits, but for some reason she could eat as much greasy bacon as she wanted. While I understand that some fruits can have a lot of sugar in them, I won’t even pretend that I understand the logic behind dieting systems like this. Why would fruit be “worse” than something that’s coated in grease? (Again, to be clear: I don’t go around telling people not to diet. I’m not a jerk and I have no interest in policing other people’s consumption habits. Unless I’m concerned that someone is entering into patterns of disordered eating and could be harming themselves, I don’t think it’s any of my business what they’re eating.)
I’m extremely distrustful of dieting/the health food industry. A lot of this concern stems from the conflation of weight and health. It seems to me that a significant chunk of our dieting industry is based around convincing people (and particularly POC and women) that their bodies are somehow inadequate and unappealing. This is absolutely disgusting. I’m not interested in supporting any industries that profit off of telling me that I’m ugly and “need” to look “better.” (See also: my rants on the mainstream makeup industry). These industries permeate our psyches and result in us internalizing some pretty horrible things. A couple years ago, my younger sister turned to me, completely unprompted, and told me, “You know, you’re not really faaaaat… but you’re pretty borderline.” This was disturbing for a number of reasons, obviously. For one, it was scary to see that my sister, who was probably 12 or so when this happened, was apparently spending her time analyzing my weight. It was concerning to see that this was what she was thinking about when looking at me, rather than my qualities as a human being. (And I can’t just place blame on my sister. I know this didn’t happen spontaneously; it was a result of being socialized in a system that emphasizes weight and “health” over balanced, successful lives.) On the other hand, it was also very scary to see how much this one sentence impacted me. (I cried and didn’t eat for two days.) It spoke a lot to how I too have internalized these beliefs. Why was not having people think I’m “fat” such a major concern to me? Why did I even care? Clearly, I’m not operating outside of this system.
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Delete**** TRIGGER WARNING. Don't feel pressure to read if you don't want to. ****
I know that as a younger person, I had an extremely unhealthy relationship to food. I grew up in a context where I was “the fat one” out of my siblings. (Despite not being significantly larger than either of my siblings, the narrative in my family was always that they were athletic and in shape and I was not.) In school, I was surrounded by friends who would complain constantly about being overweight, despite being significantly smaller than me. This made me feel absolutely terrible about myself. If they were “fat” (and therefore, under this framework, unworthy), then what was I? I never fit into a size 0 or 2. I was particularly self-conscious about my legs. (My legs are a lot thicker than most people my size, to the point where I have a hard time buying boots because they’re usually too tight around the calves. Seriously, I have to special order them. Nowadays, I try to remind myself that diversity in body shape is normal/beautiful/not a bad thing, but as a teenager this was absolutely devastating, and proof that I was not “normal.”) I refused to wear shorts at school because I didn’t want people to look at me. I would eat alone at lunch because I didn’t want people to see me eating pizza. If I thought I had eaten too much, I would throw up or refuse to eat anything else for a long time. My entire perception of myself was built around a culture of fear, discomfort, and shame when it comes to food.
Over the years, something that I’ve found has helped me has been to try to focus on listening to my body. I try very hard to eat the things that I’m craving. If my body is telling me that it needs sugar/carbs/whatever it may be, I think it’s in my best interest to listen. In the time since leaving high school, I’ve tried to practice a philosophy of: (a) eat what you want, (b) eat as much as you want, (c) eat when you want. Sometimes this is really difficult for me. But I know it’s in my best interest to try.
I have always loved food. Food makes me happy and it’s apart of my culture. I feel like food is involved in many aspects of my social and psychological life. However, I believed that in specifically Western cultures, food is restricted or allows people to not truly enjoy food, because of what is considered beauty standards. In many cases, eating certain foods is seen as a crime. As a result, the fun of eating or the enjoyment is taken away in order to meet these standards. Throughout my life, I did not have psychological challenges with eating food. If I did feel myself starting to consume these images, I affirmed myself that I was beautiful. I also took on doing what I enjoyed in order to be healthy (without focusing on trying to be skinny), by doing yoga, dancing, and strength training. However, I was surrounded with peers who did face these challenges. If the structures were altered, more people would have an opportunity to enjoy food without having doubt or concerns of what it may do to their body. Structures can be broken within media we well as other outlets. Additionally, more awareness pertaining to body image as it later to food will also serve as one of the first steps to breaking down these structures.
ReplyDeleteSo I was at a birthday party this past weekend and the eating of the birthday cake prompted people around the table to start sharing about how much this cake was messing up their diets. I found myself feeling shocked at how many people were on some kind of diet--everyone was talking about how many grams of protein they had to eat each day and how hard it was to eat that much protein. There were all shapes, sizes, and ages around this table, so it definitely wasn't the case that everyone was struggling with some kind of health condition that required them to be weighing out the protein in their foods. I actually felt kind of guilty when I said, "I just pretty much eat whatever I'm hungry for" as if that wasn't an acceptable or enlightened way to eat.
ReplyDeleteMy food philosophy is really similar to Rachel's: I try to listen to what my body is craving and eat that. That sounds really simple, but when I think about how that way of eating has developed for me, it's actually not simple at all. Listening to my body means actually LISTENING to my body and my self, figuring out what my true needs are, and figuring out how to meet those. There were many years in my teens and twenties when I overate massive amounts of food in response to unexpressed sadness. As I ate, I could feel the emotion being stuffed back down inside me. It felt awful, but at the time, I didn't know what else to do with that emotion. Listening to my true needs meant lots of counseling and learning how to honor, feel, and express all of my emotions and to be kinder to myself.
These days if I'm eating when I'm not actually hungry, it's probably because I'm tired, trying to stay up too late to accomplish one more thing and I'm eating to help myself stay awake and alert. I've been working deliberately this past year to minimize those situations and to prioritize going to bed when I'm tired. So, my food philosophy includes: eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired, cry when you are sad. Also--exercise when you are stiff and sore! I find that if I'm getting physical exercise, that helps me be more in tune with how my body feels and what foods it wants.
I think part of altering our food culture is to tune out the advertising as much as possible. The advertising that tries to convince us that we crave certain foods, the advertising that tries to convince us our bodies need to look a certain way or we won't be loved, and the advertising that tries to convince us of the super-nutritional health benefits of the latest food craze. If we listened more to our insides rather than the outside, I think we'd be both mentally and physically healthier.
I have some rules (that I often break, but I guess that’s why they are rules) that developed over the years. Some are from my parents, and some are from books, and some are just by listening to my body. I will write them all down and explain each:
ReplyDelete1. Eat what you are craving
This one is from my mom. She is a firm believer that, if you are craving something, it is because your body needs that food. So, if I have weird level of craving for certain thing (e.g. red meat, fresh fruit), I try to eat them
2. Don’t eat too much meat
I have been having physical reaction when I eat a large quantity of meat. I often feel lethargic and more tired than usual in the morning after.
3. Don’t eat too much sugar
I think sugar’s effect is becoming more and more obvious in my body. I get a sugar high and then crash, which makes me feel bad not only physically, but also mentally.
4. Eat distinct meals
My parents’ rule, and frankly I think it is a good one. If I continuously eat moderate amount of food I feel constantly bloated yet powerless.
5. Eat food
This one comes from Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, where he writes his own rule, “eat food/ mostly plants/ not too much”. He talks about how a lot of things we buy in a grocery stores are so processed to the point where they lose their food-ness (for which, we have to cast aside our criticism of the inherent classism within).
Thank you Sam for sharing a topic that hits (unfortunately) many at home. Korea is THE leading nation in plastic surgery. When you walk down the street, more than half the women have received some form of surgery such as creating double eyelids or redefining your nose. Surprisingly, in a country where you are presumed to hate how you look, eating disorder is not a major topic of discussion. To be frank, I’ve never heard it brought up and I doubt if it is because Korea does not suffer from eating disorders – on the contrary, I would argue that it is not a topic of discussion because dissatisfaction with one’s body is assumed within Korean society. As much as I love K-pop, a serious criticism that I have for the genre is its promotion of unhealthy body standards.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is where I don’t know if I’m just remembering things incorrectly or not at all, because I don’t remember there being an explicit tie between Korean body image and food. I’ve definitely NEVER heard of gluten-free diet (just because it’s one of the articles listed above) before coming to US, and I genuinely thought everyone was kidding when I first came to US. What do you mean you can’t eat gluten? Like, that’s a thing? And I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but I don’t remember counting calories and nutrients being super important in our culture, NOT as much as US. I’ve left the country for a while now, but I keep tabs via news media and private blogs and it does not come up (not as frequently as US media does). I did a quick research as to why this might be, and several possible leads came up.
I’m just going to drop this title here: “South Korea is the slimmest country in OCED”. The article didn’t really provide an analysis of why that might be or if the BMI has been standardized for all of the OCED countries, but there’s that. Below are all of my observations about Korea and food related to the title above. Korea has small portion size compared to US. That is something I remember when I first moved to US and it was my first culture shock. Majority of Korean cuisine uses vegetables and fruit. They are not vegetarian, but that’s because we use a lot of pork/beef/fish broth in our food; however, that is not the same as consuming a chicken breast every day. That’s why we don’t have a distinction between vegetarian/vegan vs. not vegetarian/vegan. Meat is engrained to our diet, but not like the way it is in US. Whenever I cook Korea food, a single chicken breast broth will last me three days. We have a lot of chips and that sort of snack food, but not as much as US. No pop tarts, licorice, fruit rings, or just a lot of processed sugar in general. Another lead is that the desire for the perfect body image has manifested itself into different forms – for example, instead of counting calories, we perform surgical process that will remove body fat. I know none of the above really explains why I never see an as nuanced narrative to food as I do in US, but… I just don’t remember food playing a huge role in body image (not as much as plastic surgery).
So here is where I’m trying to wreck my brain, wondering if I have any philosophy about food. I know I miss Korean food, where there was a natural balance between vegetable and meat. I don’t like what tastes too “processed”, a flavor that I never experienced before coming to US (so majority of the snacks like licorice, fruit rings, and whatever that is not chips). I’m always hungry for fruit that doesn’t taste rotten (thank you cafeteria) because back at home my mom always stocked up on fruit. I guess my taste buds naturally lean towards Korean food?? Yeah, I don’t really have a philosophy with food. This is so weird. Once I started attending Kalamazoo College I became more aware of the farming system and how I might fight the system by going to farmer’s market, but I don’t have a food philosophy regarding my own bodily health.
Since around the beginning of winter quarter I became a vegetarian. I decided I wasn't ok with how the meat industry treated animals and also believed that if you can't look in the eyes of the animal your about to eat and kill it you shouldn't have the right to eat it. Recently I have also thought of becoming vegan but I can't let go of eggs just yet. I already cant eat dairy products so I'm halfway there. I just want to live with a good conscious in that I know the food I'm eating didn't come from abuse are harm to anyone or anything. This is why I want to grow my own food but the society we live in makes it challenging to do this which seems counter productive because we need food to live. You can't eat money.
ReplyDeleteI think bringing more awareness to our food industry and then relating it to what people eat on their plates is crucial for changing how people think about food. We've become so far removed on how to live. People are disconnected with the land and nature that it's damaging I think. I think quality of health would be better if everyone had land they could grow food on.
Occasionally I will go through a phase where I try to go vegetarian or vegan. After a few days of trying out a diet without meat, I always revert to an omnivore diet. I know that not eating meat is better for the environment and my body, but I also think that it comes down to eating meat in moderation rather than cutting it out completely. If there were to be a radical shift in how we use meat and how much meat we consume in the United States it could help stop climate change, save animals lives, and save our bodies as relying more on plants rather than meat has proven to be healthier for the human body.
ReplyDeleteDue to the biology class in my high school and some readings about nutrition in the freshmen year, I decided to go for a diet with low carbohydrate. After that, unlike other Chinese ( in China), I almost don't eat rice, since the largest part of nutritions in rice is carbohydrate. I also stoped eating patato, bread, cakes and some other food. However, even though I have tried very hard for this diet, my body dose not change significantly from others and myself before the diet. One of the reason I think related to sweet coffee, to some reasons, I just can't stop drinking sweet coffees, and it is the main source of carbonhydrate for my body right now. However, according to this, it makes me wonder whether my body would get significantly changed if zero sugar is digested, or compared with other food, sweet coffee is so sugar-riched that other food is not sugared comparatively. I wished there could be more science research on this topic.
ReplyDeleteI went gluten free this winter because I felt sick to my stomach all the time and I knew something was wrong. I had tried cutting out a number of other things before and I was really resistant to being gluten-free both because I love bread and it's such a dumb fad that I didn't want to buy into. My mom finally convinced me over winter break to try it and I pretty immediately felt a lot better, I even tried going back to eating gluten, just to be sure, and I felt bad all over again. I don't think I have celiacs but I'm definitely intolerant. Since stoping eating gluten I feel a ton better like physically, but it has come a long with a bunch of complicated other feelings in regards to my body and others perception of it. When I stopped eating gluten my body reacted and I lost some weight. However, because it was over winter break I saw my entire extended family and they ALL commented on how good I looked. I consciously and like academically knew that this was stupid and that I shouldn't care what other people felt about my body. BUT, my subconscious, socially constructed self was secretly pleased and that felt really icky. I'm still grappling with these conflicting reactions and definitely haven't worked through them yet.
ReplyDeleteSeparately, I often feel self-conscious about saying I'm gluten-free because it's such a fad right now. It's a stupid way to feel about something that makes my body feel so much better, but I'm always embarrassed asking the necessary questions, like at restaurants, to make sure I'm not sick later. I'm hoping eventually I'll get to a place where other peoples' opinions on my food choices and body don't affect me so much but it's going to take a lot of work.
Just in general, I am not the most perceptive when it comes to interpreting what my body is asking for until it has reached an extreme. I really can't tell on a day to day basis what foods make me feel good or bad. I am very bad at gauging whether I am gaining weight, losing weight, or staying the same and 95% of the time really just don't know. I have been a vegetarian since I was 13, but had to start eating meat again for study abroad, and then went back to being vegetarian when I returned, but I honestly didn't notice any type of change in my body as a result of any of those shifts.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways I think this has been good for me- I can usually eat what I want when I want it without adverse effects and when I can't tell how my weight is fluctuating I have learned to just love my body how it is and not even worry about the fluctuations. However, in other ways I think this was also damaging when I was younger. Because I didn't think my body could self-regulate or if it was self-regulating I couldn't interpret it, I went through a lot of mental stress around what I was eating. I used to spend so much time and emotional energy forcing myself to eat things that I didn't like but were healthier for me or feeling guilty about just eating whatever I felt like even if it wasn't healthy. Because I couldn't feel any physical changes when I ate differently and before I knew about all of the internal benefits of eating healthier separate from the ones that were able to be physically felt (by others), I think the only reason I was putting so much mental and emotional pressure on myself about eating was for trying to be skinny. Long story short, considering this topic of discussion, I think I spent a lot of my high school and early college years with a very mentally and emotionally unhealthy relationship with food and what choices I was making. Over the last 2 years of college though, I think I have finally found a way to make a comfortable shift away from that emotionally taxing food relationship. At some point towards the end of sophomore year, I finally figured out how to want foods that were better for me, not because they made me feel better (because they don't) or because I thought they would make me skinnier (I don't care anymore, I feel confident in my body), but just because I want them. I finally learned that I can cook vegetables differently so I like them better and that there is value in trying different types of a vegetable until I find the one I like most (thus my love of carrots was born!). Now I know what I need to eat to keep my insides running properly and enjoy eating that way too. I have a new love for learning new recipes and trying new vegetables and I am looking forward to cultivating my better relationship with food and eating.
I feel like that is a very long-winded answer, but I hope that it makes sense and reflects a little bit about my relationship with food and diet shifts...
Thanks for this post, Sam. I appreciate your opennnes and confidence in delving into this topic.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally, my relationship with food has been a rollercoaster, and it all comes back to my relationship with myself.
Up until collect, I would not say that I was a very self-aware person, my awareness has drastically grown throughout the past 4 years, and along with that my awareness of my consumption. I am a firm believer that you are what you eat--- what we consume makes up our cells and in turn plays a huge effect in our physiological and biological functions, and in turn our bodies and minds. Before this awareness, I was eating foods that did not nourish my body and mind, and I wasn't feeling optimally physically and mentally. But as I have become more aware through learning, and then listening to my body, I have adopted a plant-based diet because those to me make me feel best. I've found joy and pleasure in cooking plant foods, but I still find myself worrying about the content of even plant based foods-- how much of it is water, carbon, nitrogen, oils, etc. I'm noticing that my mind is becoming obsessed with becoming more and more aware of food and this is where it is becoming dangerous- but as I remain aware of these boundaries, I will continue to strive for a healthy relationship with myself and food.