It also surprised me how much food was eaten away from the cafeteria and or school affiliation Sodexo food
Monday, May 14, 2012
Commonalities
Very few of the Blog Post #8's mentioned eating breakfast or even having anything before 1 in the afternoon. For me, I usually try to eat breakfast on the weekends because my pioneer card allows me to get an omelet, yet during the week I follow much more of the same pattern I am seeing other classmates use in their Blog Posts. As a college student breakfast is a very difficult meal to eat on a consistent basis unless you have an early class or a specific dining plan. The absence of breakfast during the week in my life is due to my meal plan as well as my class schedule and because of that it is very difficult for me to try to work it back into my daily routine.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Food Log
Friday:
·
12 pm – 2 Chicken Breasts, some fries, and
carrots – 2 beverages
·
2:30 pm – Bag of Gardettas chips
·
6 pm – Quesadilla with chicken, chips – 1
beverage
·
9 pm – Snack mix consisting of pretzels, oyster
crackers, and nuts
·
9 pm-12 am – 8 or so beverages
Saturday:
·
9 am – Omelet with cheese, bell peppers, and
onions – 2 beverages
·
1 pm – 1 Chicken Breast, a salad with carrots
and bell peppers, a couple saltines – 2 beverages
·
5 pm – 2 nutri-grain bars and a beef jerky stick
·
7:30 pm – A piece of white chicken, mac and
cheese, and honeydew – 1 beverage
·
9:30 pm-11 pm – 6 or so beverages
Sunday:
·
11:30 am – Omelet with cheese, bell peppers, and
onions – 1 beverage
·
3:45 pm – Chipotle chicken burrito with beans,
corn, salsa, cheese, ect – 3 beverages
·
5:00 pm – 1 piece of pizza and carrots
·
5:25 pm – 1 banana
·
9:30 pm – 1 orange
·
12:00 pm – 1 bag of Gardettas chips
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The Banana
Yesterday morning I woke up much
earlier than normal and decided to treat myself to a nice Sodexo style omelet
filled with cheese, onions, and peppers. After enthusiastically indulging the
290-calorie meal Sodexo likes to refer to as an omelet, I grabbed myself a nice
looking Fuji apple and began scavenging through the banana basket, searching,
for the perfect, unharmed yellow crescent moon fruit. Why I feel the need to
get a yellow banana opposed to a yellow and brown or yellow and green banana is
historically based in my past as well as in my distrust for Sodexo food, even a
harmless fruit like a banana.
Since I can remember, my Dad always
had a fresh, cut up piece of fruit in the car while driving my sister and I to
school. While I loved this daily routine, I have now noticed that I have become
very picky about which fruits I choose to eat, as well as what condition said
fruit is in. While looking through the bananas I noticed how many of these
yellow fruits were either inedible or covered in bruises and wondered to myself
where in the world Sodexo was getting these bananas from. With a little
research on my part about the history of the banana I didn’t necessarily find
out where exactly Sodexo was getting their bananas, but I was able to find out
the origin of the banana as well as where I think these bananas are coming
form.
What I learned about the history of
the banana in my research was that, “The earliest documentary reference to bananas in Africa is from
the sixth century A.D. Historians and archaeologists often thought that bananas
were probably introduced to Africa via Madagascar, which was colonized by
people from Southeast Asia in the first millennium A.D.”(Robertshaw) These
facts interested me, yet as I scoured over the Internet I still couldn’t find
where exactly Sodexo was getting their fruit/specifically their bananas.
Although I gave up on the search to find where these bananas were coming from,
just the fact that I couldn’t find the country, continent, region, even
hemisphere where Sodexo was getting their food products, has changed my
relationship, not necessarily with the fruit, but with the Sodexo Company all
together.
Although I am sitting here writing this paper eating a
banana that came from the cafeteria and in about and hour will be going back
downstairs to get a nice Sodexo style meal, the way in which I view the meal
and its components have changed drastically. This distrust that I now have
acquired for the Sodexo Company is not going to force me to stop eating in the
cafeteria or to stop eating all Sodexo productions, yet it has made me more
aware of what is going into my body and the risk factors of such food being
inadequately maintained or prepared. Because of the low risk factors of ill
prepared and maintained fruits and vegetables, I have noticed myself migrating
towards a more vegetarian lifestyle while eating at the cafeteria.
When researching the production the banana, I came across
and interesting source that spoke about the problems of huge supermarkets and
mass distributers wanting evenly ripe bananas and how traditional methods of
ripening the bananas weren’t efficient enough. The author states, “The problem has been that consumers demand
bunches of bananas that have ripened evenly. This was difficult to achieve with
their traditional method of hanging bunches from the kitchen ceiling. So
farmers were unable to supply quality fruit on a regular basis. One farmer,
Juma Mgwane, experimented by putting bunches in an underground pit and using
smoke to hasten ripening.”(Anonymous), which ties back to my essay “Faster”
about how it now seems that the only thing that the food industry cares about
is efficiency. The source goes on to say, “The smoking process takes about 20
minutes. After smoking, the pipe is closed and the pit left for about 24 hours,
when it is opened. The banana bunches are evenly ripened and ready for
packaging and selling.”(Anonymous), instead of waiting for the natural development of
the banana to occur, the farmer chose to speed up the process and in doing so possibly
jeopardized the product, all for the sake of efficiency.
Learning about the banana and its production has
definitely changed my relationship with the food in a subconscious sense, yet I
still love bananas and although there may be some sketchy methods of speeding
of the ripening process, I still have a banana every day. For me, even with
this new information, the benefits of bananas far outweigh the negatives of the
ripening process and mass production. With this in mind, enjoy your next banana
and see if your taste buds can detect the smoky nature of the yellow crescent
shaped fruit.
Sources:
Sunday, May 6, 2012
National Eating disorder
Pollan points out many problems with the way in
which Americans go about picking and choosing which foods they are going to put
in their bodies, and says that because of these problems, America is one of the
unhealthiest countries in the world. Pollan looks at the changing diet fads
that stress one nutritional group over the other, such as the Atkins diet,
which stresses a carb free life in order to be “healthy” and look in style.
What I thought was most interesting about this article was when Pollan stated,
“So
we've learned to choose our foods by the numbers (calories, carbs, fats,
R.D.A.'s, price, whatever), relying more heavily on our reading and
computational skills than upon our senses. Indeed, we've lost all confidence in
our senses of taste and smell, which can't detect the invisible macro- and
micronutrients science has taught us to worry about, and which food processors
have become adept at deceiving anyway.”(Pollan, 4) This statement truly
captured to me the American food culture and how people in the United States
pick and choose which foods they are going to eat. With the food industry
playing perfectly into these changing diet fads, the facilitation of this
cultural shift will continue to thrive and allow the food industry to prosper
and make money off of carb crazy Americans, due to the fact that the rest of
the world doesn’t have to deal with this problem. Pollan’s talk about Europe
and the European style of eating interested me due to the fact that I had wrote
similarly on the last paper and I was reading to learn facts that I didn’t know.
I really enjoyed when he talked about France and Italy having a traditional
meal set up and how that set up has not changed for centuries, and because of
that, the diversity of the food in their 3-4 hour meal allows them to get all
the nutrients out of all the different food gr
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Out of Site
I really enjoyed this article because it finally
began to look at our relationship to animals and how we treat them in specific
situations. These specific situations range from giving our pets like our dogs
and cats presents at Christmas time or their birthday’s to clinical testing and
animal cruelty. This article was especially interesting due to the fact that
right now I am learning about animal testing/animal ethics in my Ethics class
and this article plays right into how humans take advantage and exploit animals
on the basis that they don’t have the capacity to feel some of the emotions we
feel or have the ability to rationalize. What this article did was show exactly
why billions of people all over the world are so ok with eating animal meat and
why they don’t question it. Just because these animals are being tortured and
slaughtered out of our site doesn’t mean that we are not playing a part in
those animals being tortured and slaughtered. By buying the food or products
that are produced from animal testing/slaughtering we are silently supporting a
business that I guarantee none of us would do first hand. Think about actually
have to go and find a chicken for yourself, pluck the feathers, slaughter the
chicken, drain the blood, cook the chicken, after finishing this process, how appetizing
would that meal be knowing you were the one to end another organisms life. This
is only half of what the meat industry does, these companies raise animals for
the sole purpose of being slaughtered and eaten at a later date, how in the
world are we as people ok with other living things being tortured and mutilated
as long as we don’t see it?
Faster
Bryce
Rothenberg
FASTER!
Horwitz’s article about ‘Eating on the Edge” illustrated how food, has
become "an additive to a situation, such as a cigarette would be, rather
than being definitive"(Horwitz 1). This idea of eating food or
having a meal becoming more of task than a leisurely social activity has
resonated with me much more ever since coming to college. Due to how busy I am,
I have noticed that I tend to eat much more food on the go and my appreciation
for the food that I eat has decreased drastically due to it becoming a more
individual experience. This idea is not only shared by me, "In the US,
unstructured eating patterns have become more common, while taking time to
share food with others is becoming less familiar"(Horwitz 4), many
restaurants have now begun to implement fast-service food ideas to the layout
of their store, to the way that the store is run, allowing people to get their
food efficiently, use their food as a utility if needed, yet also allows them
the ability to relax and eat with friends. Both Chipotle and Illegal Pete’s are
Mexican grills that service mostly college students, and in my opinion because
of the proximity to the University of Denver and the youthful, fast moving
culture, the unique efficient layout of each restaurant allows many different
people to eat their meals in many different ways. What I mean when I say the
restaurant “allows many different people to eat many different ways” is that no
matter how a person wants to treat their specific meal at Pete’s or Chipotle
that day, either getting it to go and eating it in class or at work, while on
the go, sitting alone studying in the restaurant, conversing with your friends
sitting at a table, ect., the point I am trying to make is that the
accessibility and or utility of the food being produced at these restaurants is
absurdly versatile. This culture that we
live in has transformed the meaning of a meal from something that use to be
shared with your friends and family, to a means, a utility, that facilitates an
ends, being full.
Coming to college I knew that some things would change drastically but I
never thought that my appreciation for food or a meal would diminish so
substantially. Being on the crimson meal plan, I am not allowed to enter the
cafeteria before 11 o’clock in the morning, yet after 11 and until 7 o’clock at
night I am allowed to get as much food as I want as many times as I want. This
being said, my eating patterns and my appreciation for a specific meals such as
breakfast, lunch, or dinner have diminished drastically due to my inability to
fully experience or indulge in a specific meal. Due to this change in my eating
patterns, I have noticed that I tend to eat much more food on the go and my
appreciation for the food that I eat has changed from something I used to
completely and utterly love, into a utility. For me this change is
something I have come to accept due to the situation that I have been placed
in, and the priorities that I have established for myself have put my academics
and or my personal success above my enjoyment of specific meals. Don’t get me
wrong, I definitely sit down and enjoy my meals every once in a while, but food
itself, at this point in time, has become a utility that is essential to my
survival and nothing more.
Although this food culture
is changing, into a faster paced, efficiently based system, the nice sit down
family and friend meals that once were so popular are still present, yet fading
into the background. This transition between sitting down and having a meal
with your family or friends, to grabbing food on the go, has not only made food
a utility, but has changed our culture into a more individualistic society that
doesn’t value relationships like they use to. With the introduction of the
television as well as the computer our society has changed drastically. While
this transition was taking place technologically and culturally, the food
industry recognized this significant culture shirt, also known as the
“efficiency boom”, and began to make products that suited this emerging
generation of fast American youth.
Since the invention of the
“TV tray”, the food industry has tailored their products for efficiency and
utility, moving farther and farther away from the sit down family meal that use
to be the American culture. With the food industry encouraging and advertising,
efficient easily accessible meals, the American culture and especially the U.S.
youth are being pushed to accept and conform to this fast paced (efficient)
utility driven meaning of food. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the
food industry is the reason that Western culture is defined the way it is, what
I’m trying to say is that the technological revolution that we are experiencing
now, and have been for the past 20 plus years, caused a serious cultural shift,
which the food industry recognized and began to cater to. Since the 90’s and
the “efficiency boom” (technological revolution), Western culture has become a
goal oriented, fast paced, future driven society, much more involved in
personal success and business than relationships and leisure. Now as time
progresses we are beginning to see restaurants around densely youth populated
areas, such as colleges, becoming more fast-service food oriented, rather than
sit down, order at the table restaurants, that became so popular in the late 20th
century.
Being
a college student, and living around a college campus allows me to realize the
different fast paced culture of the youth, where utility and efficiency are characteristics
most sought after. Restaurants who set up shop close to campus have been forced
to integrate fast-service food into their layout and management of the store
because of the growing demand for fast quality food. “Often, the bottlenecks in service are due to the restaurant’s overall
design and setup. ‘Many operations that I have consulted with made all of their
mistakes in the design phase,’ Kharasch says. ‘They did not think through every
step an employee has to make to get the food out and they did not think about
where a guest stands when waiting to order food, or how many registers they may
need if the sales are above expectations’”(Brox, Fast Food Fast). For Pete’s I
feel that this fast-service food idea was absolutely implemented into the
layout of the restaurant, due to the placement of the menu in comparison to
where the customers line up, to how checkout and or ordering process goes, Pete’s
was tailored for efficiency and the “on the go” college student.
These
“on the go” college students have forced the restaurants surrounding the
University of Denver to transform how their food is utilized and appreciated.
What I have noticed personally is that these restaurants have changed their
layout and or style to accommodate the fast paced youth culture, yet these
restaurants have not compromised their ingredients or finished product to allow
this service to be faster. Although the food culture maybe changing into an on
the go, fast paced system, the integrity of the food and freshness of the
ingredients will always be cherished by the provider and the consumer.
People
have become so custom to eating on the go, and because of this, when people are
not able to get something quickly and efficiently they will more likely than
not to skip the meal than take the time out of their day to sit down and enjoy
the meal. In Europe this idea of grabbing a meal to eat while on the go or even
skipping a meal is almost unheard of. Food in European cultures is more about
the experience than anything else, being able to sit down for 3 hours with your
friends and or family and have a leisurely meal is the norm and eating alone is
preposterous.
European culture
has not been as affected by the “efficiency boom” or technology as the United
States and Western culture have, as you can see through the leisurely European
approach to food and work and how they intertwine. Work in Europe is seen as
just that in itself, work, meaning that people in Europe work to support their
family and give themselves the ability to experience leisure, rather than
working to be rich, which is seen so much in Western culture. In Europe, during
the entire month of August, no matter where you are or what profession you are
in, you are on vacation. The way that Europeans view work is that they feel
that if their employees are well rested and have time to relax and recuperate
that the work that they produce will be much better and a much higher quality.
Going along this same line, every day for lunch, European workers get a
two-three hour break for lunch during which they can do anything. The
importance that companies in Europe are placing on scheduled time for leisure
is what is keeping Europe from turning into a more Western based culture. A
blog post claiming “I’d Rather Eat at My Desk” launched a massive discussion, “In response to folks writing wistfully
about some European countries with their long lunches, Larimore pointed out
that, for the working parent, a long lunch is just more time you're not with
your kids. Maybe that's the point (they don't seem to be having many kids in
Europe these days). But many of us like spending our evenings with our
families.”(Vanderkam) For people living in the West in such a goal driven, fast
paced society, the idea of long lunches and leisure, as enjoyed by people in
Europe, is ridiculous because it is impossible in the society that we live in.
With technological
advances changing how the Western society we live in operates, the food
industry has begun to tailor their products and advertisements to this changing
culture, and in doing so are facilitating the fast paced society we have come
to know. As our life becomes more
dependent on these fast-service food restaurants, easily accessible, efficient
food products, the food industry will continue to make more efficient, utility
driven means of food, and the society that we live in will continue to become
exponentially faster paced.
Works Cited
Brox,
Denene. "Fast Food Fast." Quick Fast Food Service Crucial to
Success. QSR. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.qsrmagazine.com/ordering/fast-food-fast?microsite=5>.
Horwitz, Jamie. "Eating at the Edge." University
of California Press. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2009.9.3.42
.>.
Vanderkam, Laura. "Should You Eat at Your Desk?" CBSNews.
CBS Interactive, 30 Apr. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57423885/should-you-eat-at-your-desk/>.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Utility
Horwitz’s article about ‘Eating on the Edge” illustrated how
food, just as many items and utilities, have evolved to fit a specific purpose
in today’s culture. This idea of eating food or having a meal becoming more of
an individual experience has resonated with me much more ever since coming to
college, due to how busy I am just on a day to day basis and how little time I
have to eat in between classes and or places I have to go. Because of my
specific meal plan, I am not allowed to enter the cafeteria before 11 o’clock
in the morning, yet after 11 and until 7 o’clock at night I am allowed to get
as much food as I want as many times as I want. This being said, my eating
patterns and my appreciation for a specific meals such as breakfast, lunch, or
dinner have diminished drastically due to my inability to fully experience or
indulge in a specific meal. This idea is not shared only by me, "In the US, unstructured eating patterns have become more common, while taking time to share food with others is becoming less familiar"(Horwitz 4). Due to this change in my eating patterns, I
have noticed that I tend to eat much more food on the go and my appreciation
for the food that I eat has changed from something I used to completely and
utterly love, into a utility, "an additive to a situation, such as a cigarette would be, rather than being definitive"(Horwitz 1). For me this change is something I have come to
accept due to the situation that I have been placed in, and the priorities that
I have established for myself have put my academics and or my personal success above
my enjoyment of specific meals. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely sit down and
enjoy my meals every once in a while, but food itself at this point in time has
become a utility that is essential to my survival and nothing more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)