Importance Of Food Essay

Food makes the world go round

There is a common misconception that money makes the world go round. Money can buy everything needed to survive and more, but it is the things bought that deserve this credit. All human beings have to do three essential things; sleep, breath, and eat. Eating being the most flexible, it has an endless list of possibilities that vary all around the world. Food, and the way it is prepared, shapes the lifestyle of everyone around it and plays an important role in social status, personal and cultural identity, and religion.

There is much to be said in the way a person prepares a meal. The ingredients used and what recipe was given, even how the meal was shared and dined, can say a lot about where someone is from and who they are. Someone’s cultural profile is comprised by food, it holds everything that is significant to that person. It varies from table to table, and those variations make social relationships and point out the differences.

Going to McDonalds compared to going to a fancy restaurant which requires a reservation is the most obvious way of separating a social gap. Where one shops for groceries, who prepares the meals, where the food is consumed, and even the portions can close or widen a social gap between people. The store where food is bought can range between Walmart and Aldi or a specific health store and a farmers market. The person making the meal can go from a cook who is hired to the teenager making ramen noodles. A dining hall to a TV tray in the living room all determine someone’s social status.

Foods social context is really important. In the similar way impact with other cultures has on language and communication, the same is true for food consumption and practices. In the st...

... middle of paper ...

... Michael Pollan in “The Cooking Animal” talks about how James Boswell “noted that no beast is a cook, calling Homo sapiens the cooking animal” (104). The use of fire has changed a lot about the way food is prepared for humans and the different ways to eat things that were not on the menu beforehand. Cooking food is what makes us human.

Food, and the way it is prepared shapes lifestyles of everyone around it. It effects everyone by either the many different variations of it or by scarcely being there at all. It links generations together and determines how someone lives their life and teaches the next generation. Most of the social gatherings of club and groups and family reunions are gathered around food because it calms people, it gives people something to do with their hands and is universal to surviving. Food is culture, not just something that just defines it.