The Mediterranean and The Ghanaian Diet
A diet refers to a meal that can provide the human body with all vital nutrients without providing toxic substances (Roderuck, 1981). A diet is considered balanced or unbalanced depending on the amount of needed nutrients contained in it. Comparisons can be made between the diet of various areas, towns, cities, countries and to larger extents, continents. In this paper, I am going to discuss the French diet being equivalent to the Ghanaian diet in terms of nutritional value but the Ghana diet outweighing the French diet in the areas of affordability and accessibility.
The Mediterranean consists of several countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, some of which are Egypt, Syria, France and Greece. France is a country located at the southern corner of the Mediterranean. It holds a population size of about 66 million people. It is a country noted for gross production of cheese and pastries such as donuts, cakes and the like. The country grows cereals like wheat, barley, corn, peaches and cherries. As a result of the high production of bread in France, it now serves as a basic requirement before most meals. The most preferred meals by the French are roasted beef, vegetables, snails, frog legs and pilau rice and some form of sauce. The pyramid below gives an idea of the Mediterranean diet. (Google diet)
Looking at the Ghanaian diet, they are foods most dominant with starch or have a higher starchy level. They are usually eaten with an accompaniment which serves as the source of protein which may be in the form of a sauce or a soup. Such foods include; banku and okro, fufu and soup which could either be chicken, groundnut or kontomire soup, kenkey and grounded pepper, ‘yo-ko gari’ and beans stew, kpoikpoi (maize mix), yam, cassava, boiled or fried plantain, gari f)t), tatale, omutuo (rice balls) and waakye.
Comparing the
Michael Pollan, an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (Michael Pollan), writes in his book In Defense of Food, the dangers of nutritionism and how to escape the Western diet and subsequently most of the chronic diseases the diet imparts. In the chapter “Nutritionism Defined” Pollan defines the term nutritionism. Pollan’s main assertion being how the ideology of nutritionism defines food as the sum of its nutrients, and from this viewpoint Pollan goes on to write how nutritionism divides food into two categories, with each macronutrient divided against each other as either bad or good nutrients, in a bid for focus of our food fears and enthusiasms. Finally, Pollan concludes that with the relentless focus nutritionism places on nutrients and their interplay distinctions between foods become irrelevant and abandoned.
“Hungry for Change” is an eye opening documentary made to explore the role that food plays in peoples’ lives. The experts, ranging from authors to medical doctors, address a variety of claims through testimonials, experiments, and statistical evidence. They not only state the flaws in this generation’s diet but also logically explain the reasons behind the downfall in peoples’ diet and offer better ways to approach our health.
Although the two authors do not refer to each other directly in their works, both their perspectives share a common ground that no enough income make people eating less healthy. Pinsker argues that the actual barrier that stops people from eating healthy is the lack of income (129-130). He uses studies to show that poor families choose processed food because children like those tasty processed food (Pinsker 129-134). Whereas poor families cannot afford the waste if children refused to eat healthier but less tasty food parents provided (Pinsker 129-134). Cortright also suggests that income matters the most to why people do not eat healthy. He even further discusses income as the most influential limiting factor by addressing that other factors such as physical proximity to local food sources do not cause people to eat less healthy (Cortright 135-138). The two authors, in general, reach a consensus and mutually prove that income plays as the biggest limiting factor for people to have healthy
Nutritionally speaking, the French have been getting away with murder: They eat all the butter, cream, foie gras, pastry and cheese that their hearts desire, and yet their rates of obesity and heart disease are much lower than ours.”(146). The French have a similar diet to Americans, but they eat three times as much saturated animal fat as Americans do and only a third as many die of heart attacks. The French eat a greater diversity of foods and have structure to their schedules. The French eat prepared meals at home, with high-quality foods and in between meals. They don’t snack because of the structure in their life, they create more quality time at the dinner table to socialize with their families. This social aspect of eating meals, enjoying them with loved ones has a big impact on their overall health. Another important aspect of the French diet is how they thoroughly enjoy different kinds of red wine, cheeses, and meats. This attitude towards what people are eating and how they feel about eating, has an effect on health. “Fischler and Rozin say that the biggest predictor of health may not be the content of someone’s diet, but how stressed out they are about food, and how relaxed they are about eating.”(149). Eating healthy relies on more than just a balanced diet, but on stress levels, and your overall
The purpose of writing this paper is to discuss the pros and cons of my diet. The nutritional analysis have thought me that my choices are not terrible but they are not the beast. However, a healthy lifestyle is necessary if I want to enjoy this life without health complications. Always Including some form of vegetable, fruits, and carbohydrates in my diet is ideal. However, that may not be on a regular basis and the portion might be too small to make a difference or too much to cause harm. I have learned how many grams of fat, saturated fat and protein should be consumed per day by my body.
People seem to be enjoying the current events and influx of knowledge in decision-making and the rise of the modern society that forfeits traditions and culture of the old. He denotes that the nutritional world has been impact negatively. In his article “The Worst Mistake in History of the Human Race” he strongly points that the old ways of practicing nutrition were much between as compared to the current world. The article begins by highlighting the various beliefs which people have long been exposed to since tender ages. For instance, he mentions that people have been taught to understand that various origins of the universe and human creation. He thus compares the same with the changes in the current global society. Yet, the question remains are these changes meant for good or are they a mistake to the human
The Western Diet mainly consists of fried foods, refined grains, sugar, high carbohydrate and fats, and meats (3). It has been hypothesized that having a Western Diet increases one’s chances for developing depression. There has been a great deal of research into why the western diet increase’s one chance of having depression. A common sense reason maybe that the Western Diet consisted of large amounts carbohydrates, fats and sugars which promotes obesity and then causes depression (1). More scientific evidence suggest that having a improper diet like the Western Diet negatively affects peripheral and central dopamine, which are neurotransmitters (chemical which transmit signals across the synapse from the nerve cell to the target cell) directly linked to the mental health of the brain and are negatively affected by high fat diets (4). Research has also suggested that having a poor nutrition status such as lacking folate (a natural water form of vitamin bg which is crucial for many of the bodies processes) and key vitamins like vitamin b12 significantly increases the risk of depression in elderly people (5). Research into the topic of dietary habits and mental health is very crucial with the growing rates of obesity and depression in the United States compared to the rest of the world. Thus, does having poor dietary habits increase the likelihood of having depression? The likelihood of developing depression has been linked to the type of diet one consumes such as the Western Diet, Diets Low in Fat and Carbohydrates and weight control diets like binge eating.
In “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating” by, Mary Maxfield (pp.442-447), she affirms a bright argument about how food is not moral or immoral. Therefore, you can eat whatever you desire and not suffer any negative side effects, which she ignores. Her key points including stated facts such as “Culturally,we resist these scientific findings,” that people can be fat and healthy, “in favor of a perspective that considers fatness fatal and thinness immortal.”(pp.445) The main point to Maxfield’s claim in healthy eating, is being active and living a fit lifestyle. In “Escape From The Western Diet” (pp.420-427)by Michael Pollan, his argument is to help the American community be enlightened with
The book The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food, by Wayne Roberts introduces us to the concept of “food system”, which has been neglected by many people in today’s fast-changing and fast-developing global food scene. Roberts points out that rather than food system, more people tend to recognize food as a problem or an opportunity. And he believes that instead of considering food as a “problem”, we should think first and foremost about food as an “opportunity”.
Somerset Maugham said that “To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day”. “To live anywhere in the world you should eat at least three times a day” is probably close to the truth as well. What people eat and drink in countries close to the Mediterranean Sea is called the Mediterranean Diet. To compare this Mediterranean Diet to a typical Diet from the south of Benin, it would be correct to say that the Benin Diet is equivalent to the Mediterranean Diet because although the nutritional values are lower in the Beninois diet, it is cheaper and easier to find than the Mediterranean diet in the southern region of Benin. This paper is going to compare the diet of Benin to the diet of the Mediterranean from the nutritional values, the availability and the accessibility perspectives.
Most Americans do not care enough to take a look at the nutritional values of the food that he or she is consuming. That is why America has the highest percentage of obesity in the world. This is a serious problem because one in every three adults is obese, and one in every six children is obese. There are many factors that go into the regular American diet, but most of those factors are not appealing nor is it healthy. Americans put way too much processed food into their daily diet. Some would say that other countries diets superior the American diet because of nutritional values that it carries. Other countries have proven that an active lifestyle is a huge element in the average weight of the country. There are many things that Americans could change about their diets and lifestyle that would help them to become healthier.
Together with the accessibility of the food in the south of Benin and its affordability, my region’s diet is equal to the Mediterranean diet. The reason why it is not superior to the Mediterranean diet is that it does not contains enough nutrients to guarantee a long life expectancy.
Foods from Africa, which have impacted North American cuisine are numerous, and common in the everyday eating habits of Americans. In the 21st century, Americans take for granted the history of the food they eat, and the origins of the foods that are eaten today. In the early part of the history of the United States, people of European descent brought recipes from home and adapted their recipes to the ingredients which were available. The slave trade was directly responsible for what many Americans think of as American food, and those foods are traceable to Africa. Because slaves incorporated their own foods into the everyday lives of their masters, some of the unique foods from Africa and their history are not well known today. American
Lunch, however, is typically the heaviest meal of the day and is eaten midday to 4 pm. A Common African lunch menu can be made of potatoes, beans, rice, yams, sorghum, millet, plantain, or cassava.
African foods are bountiful and diverse. They are rich in nutritional fiber and often unrefined and they offer a healthy choice when consumed in the right blend. Most African recipes are based around ingredients and spices that are natural and can be easily farmed or produced at a subsistence level. Most African foods do not contain refined sugars and processed additives and are mainly starch based, with generous amounts of fresh vegetables and proteins found in fish or beef (AIG, 2011).