For me food is so difficult. I care about what I eat and how it effects me, but unlike Michael I have my moments-frequently-where I give in and eat processed food. For me eating the food is more about time availability than preference. I honestly have granola bars every morning for breakfast and I can't stand them. I feel like I am eating a piece of wood, but in my mind there is no way I have time to grab anything better. This issue of caring but not doing stems from being a student which I think is very hard to get past. This is where the school institutions need pushing. I think Goucher is in pretty good shape in terms of food, but we can still go further. I think the food served at Pearl Stone is completely disgusting and is just a bunch of french fries and chicken fingers. On the other hand, I know a couple people at Goucher who will only eat that food so really the question becomes how do you change students or anyone for that matter?
The only thing I think can help change anything would be if people were forced to eat good food. I mean you look at countries who don't have processed food and you see that their food is very intimately connected to their culture. Where as, here in America there really isn't a very concrete culture. In some ways that is good because people can do what they want, but at the same time it does allow a lot of room for different things.
The solution to this is education. Since you can't invent a culture for America, the people need to be educated on where there food is coming from and how it effects their health. If people can be educated than they can begin to make the choices that allow subsidies to be put on good foods rather than processed foods. I hope that in the food revolution going on right now, especially with the help of people like Michael Pollan, we can change peoples minds and make good choices.
The only thing I think can help change anything would be if people were forced to eat good food. I mean you look at countries who don't have processed food and you see that their food is very intimately connected to their culture. Where as, here in America there really isn't a very concrete culture. In some ways that is good because people can do what they want, but at the same time it does allow a lot of room for different things.
The solution to this is education. Since you can't invent a culture for America, the people need to be educated on where there food is coming from and how it effects their health. If people can be educated than they can begin to make the choices that allow subsidies to be put on good foods rather than processed foods. I hope that in the food revolution going on right now, especially with the help of people like Michael Pollan, we can change peoples minds and make good choices.
5/5 Kathleen, you raise really good points here about the contradictions in our lives-- caring about food but also not having time. I think we do have a food culture in the US: those acts-- grabbing the granola bar in the morning-- is that culture. We are moving so fast and with so much pressure, that's how we eat. I'm sitting at my desk as I write to you now, eating cheese from a plastic container while writing on the computer. That's part of our food culture in America. The interesting thing with food is once we start to look, we realize there is a lot about the way our society is structured that has to be changed in order to change how we are eating.. a postive exercise? I think so. :-) AdB
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