H#6 Food Diary

Cheese fries and bacon. I ate two full serving. Lunch on September 30th 2010, Calories  250 each.

Chicken Ceasar Salad and Orange Juice from Cosi. I ate a full serving . Lunch on September 29th 2010, Calories 495.

Candy Apple. I ate a full servings. Snack on September 30th 2010, Calories 200

Subway 6 inch sandwich. I ate a full serving. Lunch on September28th 2010 Calories 350.

Fried Chicken Wings and Macorni and Cheese. I ate a full serving. Dinner on September 30th Calories 600

          All of these foods have a decent calorie count in my opinion. Some of these food are very unhealthy and unnecessary for example the candy apple. However I had a sweet tooth craving at the time and the temptation was hard to fight. The Candy Apple contained 2 grams of protein and 10 grams of sugar. I picked these foods for multiple reasons either they were cheap, or they were in my house already which is convenient, or I was just in the mood for that kind of meal. Only one of the food gave a bad feeling the two orders of cheese fries and bacon put me to sleep at my internship for 30 minutes. I felt very tired and lazy afterwards for a while.
 

Hw#5 Dominant Discourses

          "The baby-carrot industry tried to reposition its product as junk food, starting a $25 million advertising campaign whose defining characteristics include heavy metal music, a phone app and a young man in a grocery cart dodging baby-carrot bullets fired by a woman in tight jeans." This quote immediately caught my attention and made me even go back and read it again to verify what I just read. After doing so I came to the conclusion that these people are trying to market vegetables as junk food. I am able to comprehend why they might say this because they are trying to use a new tactic to get kids to eat vegetables. However, it is capable of sending the wrong message to the public. This is basically saying that the kids of America should be tricked into eating vegetables by telling them its actually junk food. This seems to me as a dominant discourse in the food world today kids do not eat vegetables nearly as much as they need to and should. Instead kids including myself seem to be attracted to snacks with a high amount of sugar, fat, and sodium. Reasons like this are why many American kids are putting themselves at high risk of obesity and diabetes. To me it seems as though the dominant discourse is trying a new way to get their point across and out by attacking the youth first before it's to late. Personally I think it's a great strategy and may be the only way to encourage children to eat vegetables more. Some may think lying to children is cruel but all the other ways weren't working so I guess we needed to try something new.
          In my eyes the food ways of a person falls into three categories. The citizen whose brain gets clogged up with media ideas business men put on television, radio, newspapers, and billboards and there food ways because those that benefit the companies instead of the customer. On the other hand there is the more cautious citizen who analyzes and is capable of seeing through the deception of the media.Lastly there is the citizen who is beginning to understand how things really work and is trying to not fall victim to the media's influence that once had control over them. Personally I think I fall in all of these categories, and I'm constantly shifting from category to category.  The first citizen probably goes to McDonald's where prices of food are extremely low at times, and very conveniently located for them, their food ways are probably rather unhealthy. The second citizen probably makes a conscience effort to stay away from "unhealthy'' foods but isn't completely ready to give up fast food and their food ways are probably decent. The third citizen probably feels a bit uncomfortable being around fast food restaurants and makes goals on how much they eat fast food probably once a week, or once a month. Their food ways are probably good. 
          When criticized on the news business men that run companies like McDonald's should be given a chance to defend themselves. I would love to see on a news station a debate between, a business man in control of a fast food company, a doctor specializing in human health, a professional chef that cooks a variety of meals, and a average citizen.. The people would be able to hear the sides of all these different people. The defense for selling unhealthy food products may be that they just want to make the most money they can possible. Think about if you were in there situation would you do the same or not. 


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/health/policy/25vegetables.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Hw 4 Your Families Foodways

          The food that my mom has grown up eating is somewhat similar to the foods that I eat now. This is probably because my mom ate many of the foods when she was little so much that she just lost interest in them and they weren't passed onto me, or I may have just not liked them. For me I actually noticed that I don't eat most of the foods that my family eats. This is probably because I know the health risks associated with them, or they just don't appeal to me.

           My mom approaches food a little different than I do because she is a lot older than me so she has to watch what she eats because her metabolism isn't what it used to be when she was younger. She now eats a lot of weight watchers products to help her manage her diet. She shops at whole food stores and buys many of their fruits, bagels, and pizzas. She doesn't really encourage me to eat healthy like her since she thinks I'm still young and can eat whatever I want. Although this is partially true I can still put myself at risk for diseases, which would be bad.
           The way I approach food is a little different than my mom because although we both don't include soda into our diets, even though we think it tastes good we are aware what they put into it and what it does to our skin. I eat a lot more fried and baked food than my mom. Although she puts more toppings onto her food I don't because I feel as though it's not necessary.
           The food ways of my grandparents (the people who raised my mom) are very different than the food ways of my mom. When my mom was little she ate a lot of things like raviolis, bread, white rice and butter, turkey, chicken, collard greens, and meatloaf. Many of these things she finds impossible to eat now because she ate it so much when she was a kid. Now she has completely taken raviolis, white rice and butter, and meatloaf out of her diet. What I noticed was in our family if you were fed to much of one thing, you would develop a grudge for it and the chances of your kids eating those foods is cut drastically.
        Even though the food types have changed slightly over time the real difference is how much of it was being served. My mom grew up with five other siblings eating dinner with them, and the same applies to grandparents where the number of siblings was seven. Since there always seemed to be a lot of mouths to feed and since we weren't rich, you basically had to eat what you got.

HW 3 - Food - Fast Food Insights and Green Market Realizations

         

          Going to the green market was an extremely good opportunity for me.  Some differences between the Green Market and Taco Bell (the fast food place I chose to visit) were Taco Bell had lots of advertisements inside the store.  The Green Market didn't really have any advertisements that I saw, as it seems as though they didn't really need to trick the customers into buying their products because they may have been hiding something. Another difference between Green Market and Taco Bell that I noticed was Green market usually had a list or a story of how their products were being taken care of and the methods they used. As you can imagine Taco Bell certainly doesn't do this as well as most fast food restaurants because the customers would be mortified if they were to figure out the company secrets. Some similarities the Green Market and Taco Bell share are they both try and make the customers feel as welcome as possible. The green market does this by being very friendly and promoting and encouraging healthiness to the customers. Taco Bell makes the customers feel welcome by providing air conditioning, comfy seats, security cameras, including the calories next to every meal so they can think they are eating healthy, and by just having a variety of food.

           Some reasons that I think fast food is so successful is because the way they market themselves. They have many ways of going about attracting customers. They can use the television, radio, internet, the newspaper, and many more way to attract attention to their companies. They can be very convincing most of the time also. Sometimes on t.v . I will see a commercial for Wendy’s and their new burger and they will take the best possible picture of the burger to make their food look as good as possible, even though the quality may not be that good in person. Despite all the negativity being directed towards stores like Wendy's and McDonalds they are still in business. People for the most part know what these stores and their products can do to them but it's just too tempting sometimes.

           Of the two locations fast food restaurants and healthy stores like the Green Market I probably visit fast food restaurants  more. There are many reasons for this one is that there are more fast food restaurants accessible in the city. Fast food restaurants outnumber healthier stores which gives them a clear advantage. I truly believe if there were an even amount of stores I would definitely be a customer at healthy stores like the Green Market. What I think about this is it's probably part of the companies plan to outnumber healthier stores so people don't have that much of a choice that way. It's quite clever if you ask me and I would certainly do the same if I were in their shoes. People need to realize this what would you do if you were in their shoes?

Hw #2 Food Initial Thoughts

          Food is a very important part of life and something that all humans eat in order to survive. There are many different types of foods on Earth, and if not processed the right way can be more harmful then beneficial. The first way that I judge my food is by taste. Taste is one of the five senses so I figure, I should put it to good use. Food is one of the best things in my life and many people's lives also. Food is generally most enjoyable when your young, as your metabolism is at it's best. Of course you still have to watch what you eat especially for us Americans, since our country has the highest obese percentages. The second most important way for me to judge food is by how it affects my body. As I have come to learn in my life, some of the best foods are very unhealthy for you.  It can be very hard to avoid these foods since they are ever so tempting.
          As I stated earleir obesity is quite a problem all over the world, but particularly in America.  We have many fast food restaurants all over the country, and that combined with the media(advertisements, propaganda, etc) is enough to draw people to eating these unhealthy meals. To be honest I have even fallen victim to these advertisements myself.  After my eight grade teacher Sadelle who used to teach at the school, alerted me of propaganda I have been better at hording off these cravings. Of course the companies know very well what there food is doing to people all over the world but they don't care and they just want to make money off us which they are doing a fine job of.
          My typical lunch meal is usually purchased outside somewhere. Eating with the people that I like and love is very important to me since I don't get to do it at home, since my mom works nights thus, sleeping through the day and dinner time. My ideal meal is a fresh plain slice of pizza, pepporoni slice, or a bacon cheese slice. Eventhough this is terribly healthy it tastes good and I'm young so I get to enjoy myself a bit.