Food Values
Food choices reflect larger values. Many people today do not consider seriously the reasons for their food choices. Food decisions are decided and based off of a person's beliefs and standards. On a day to day basis people are exposed to many different types of food. In the HUN Blog, Scientist Paul Johnson of the Scripps Research Institute claims, "Eating junk food makes it harder to choose healthy food." This quote shows that as people fall into food habits people become addicted to what they eat and make justifications for their bad food choices. However, people begin their food habits from their different lifestyles. Our lifestyle sets values which affect our food choices. Valuing convenience, cultural traditions, and health concerns impact our diets.
A customer's decision to purchase the fast foods is a reflection of the value of the convenience. It might save the time. A contemporary people suffer to time is not enough even though we have same 24hours. People get started to choose the junk food, fast food, and street vender while going to work or home. It is easy to access the food. In other words, today's marketplace is not far to find a junk food that is why the fast food explores the growth in demand for the fast food. Also, you will be able to save the money to purchase the fast food. When people go to the restaurant, you maybe pay for more than 15% tip as well as you might spend time waiting for the line to enter the restaurant. In the article, "Convenience, Accessibility, and the demand for Fast Food," Mark D. Jekanowski claims, "Fast food suppliers emphasize minimization of time costs, that is, the maximization of convenience." This quote demonstrates that customers are typically eager to satisfy multiple benefits nowadays. In other words, convenience foods lead to two strong advantages which are saving the time and price. For instance, a person who has full time job might do not have any energy to make a food when he finished the job. A well-packaged food makes people totally change the life. By using the microwave or putting the food in the boiling water they can eat food easily even it is delicious. Eating they made a prepackage leads to saving the time and do not use many utensil. Thus, they can earn a time such as ready for cooking time as well as cleaning time. Another case is that we are using the dive threw we can eat food in our car. This is very convenience to get food. We are living the digital era, and this world is never sleeping nowadays, so time is money. In order for choosing the convenience food we can save time; we can use spend spare time doing the hobby or relaxing.
The food we consume can also illustrate the value of cultural traditions. A different cultural exists tradition all around the world. Some country foods define the taste; on the other hand, another country is nutrition. When I grew up the South Korea, I leaned social norms and etiquette from my parents. We cannot eat food until elders to begin eating even I want to drink the water; after I turn around my face, I can drink it. Because the respect for elder is built into cultural eating patterns traditions. I could not break the etiquette even if I have been living the United States America, so whenever I eat food with my homestay family or even friends who are older than me I have a responsible for waiting elders to start eating something. As for me, Food is etiquette and cultural tradition. Eating is a shared, social experience. All people at the table sometimes eat from one main dish, rather than individual dishes. It might be building gather together. Also, Korean traditional food is kimchi which made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings. Korean people even have a kimchi refrigerator in every house. This is such an integral part of the Korean diet that almost all houses keep a separate refrigerator for kimchi. This originated in the weather. When Korea was poor country during the winter season, we could not keep warming in their house. In order to get warm, we have to make a body warm. Thus, we had no choice to eat kimchi because we do not have much resource in Korea. That is why we had been long time to eat Korea traditional kimchi. It is easy to get and make it in Korea. Therefore, by choosing the food, it reminds me of the cultural tradition.
The value we consider the food is health concern. By developing technology, environment is lower and lower deteriorated. People's eyes have started to pay attention to the health concern. Taking care of the food such as organic food and gluten-free is longer to live in life. In the article, "Words Meaning," Jonathan Safran Foer demonstrates, "Organic foods in general are almost certainly safer and often have a smaller ecological footprint and better health value." In other words, by using the methods of organic farming which is not using the chemical fertilizer, you will be able to prevent a disease as well as you keep body balance. Also, according to the research, Japanese people have the world's highest expectancy, with men living to be 78 and women's average 85. Although a pollution, stress, smoking, and drinking are exist, they still outlive the others of the world because of eating healthy food such as organic food. When I was in South Korea, I knew why organic food was important for people to eat. I had a lot of acne; I suffered from skin trouble such as red spot, itchy. However, my physical condition totally changed as soon as I ate the organic food. My parents highly suggested you had to eat health food which is organic food and gluten-free. I could feel my body being of healthy and relieve the stress because I quit the fast food and started to eat low cholesterol, weeds from the sea, omega 3, and filling up on rice. As a result, my skin trouble got over itchy. Nowadays, my food value is totally changing because I would like to be healthy person.