My Food, Your Food, Our Food

Food is a huge part of the American Way Of Life. People love to eat as a form of socializing, for emotional support, and of course as a necessity. As an American however, I feel like a lot about the food we eat is overlooked. Things like where the food comes from, how the food is made, how it's transferred, how we buy it, and then how we eat it. It comes as a surprise that so many people would ignore all these things about what they consume. This class has opened my eyes to a lot more about food than I've ever thought of. Now this can be seen as a bad or good thing. On the bright side, we see where, how, and what our food actually is but on the negative side we see where, how, and what our food ACTUALLY is. This unit was an eye opener I think we all needed because it helps us see another side to the food world.

While talking about our food ways in class, I came to notice that at school my friends and I have around the same diets. We eat fast food and junk during the day. When we go home however I see that our diets differ and some eat healthier than others. I wonder sometimes what are parents would think if they realized what we eat during the day. I know my father personally would not be very happy about my lunch or snacks. I eat like this though because this is basically all that is available to me around school. Which is a good marketing technique because there are a lot of schools around here and kids usually buy junk away from home. Restaurants know that so they like to build around schools.

The videos we watched in class or on our own brought a lot of attention to animal cruelty that I had not thought of before. I never thought about what the animal I was eating went through or how the meat actually got to me. Thinking about this showed me a whole new perspective to my opinion of food. Though I am not ready to turn vegetarian I have friends that haven't eaten meat since the unit began. Andy also taught us that their our such things as pasture raised eggs. I don't really know how much truth we could recieve from whoever we buy pasture raised things but at least it's a step closer to animal friendly food. I don't really think many Americans know how animals are treated and what they go through. It really is considered animal cruelty. Andy told us of some cultures who have rules against certain things done to animals like letting the animals see the knife. I think this is nicer to do towards the animals because they shouldn't be petrified before they die. I know understand why PETA tries to bring so much awareness to these factors.

I think Americans have to start putting more thought into the food they eat. This way we can do something about the poor animals that are suffering just for us to have something to eat. So think twice the next time you are eating meat and have a moment of silence for the animal who died to give you a full belly.