Human Diet Blog #2
Theme: Eating at Home vs. Away from Home
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve told myself that choosing this kind of topic to talk about would really keep me aware of what I am putting into my body and how much of the dosage is doing me both good & bad. I always find myself consistently and eagerly checking my Fitbit to see how many calories I have burned throughout the current day, and also by checking to see my calorie intake/limit that I have set for myself. Although lately, my weight has gone up by three pounds, and this time I’m not blaming the scale. In my first blog I talked a lot about my typical eating routine while at home, and how it always consisted of a clean/wholesome diet, where moderation, variety and an aim for balance was a must. I also mentioned that I started traveling a lot, since I left school in early May. So being away for a long period of time and eating out at some of the yummiest restaurants in the different cities I visited, were of course amazing because food is love right? But later turned into a jaw dropping moment when I came home for a short time and felt my body lacked the normal energy it had before. By low energy I mean that my overall physical performance went from a 8 to a 4. I wouldn’t be up for working out, I would feel more tired than normal, and I had a harder time concentrating in class. I know this is due to being in a whole new environment and adapting to the customs that I am not all that use to, because I’ve gone through it before and its usually always the same story. I always ask myself, why is that even though I try really hard to take care of myself, I still manage to come back looking the most changed out of everyone else? Or why is it that every time I am the most paranoid about something, in this case my change in eating habits, I cant help but be the most affected by it?
I’ve been living with my host family here in Angers, France for a little over five weeks now, and in the begging I enjoyed going to different restaurants with my classmates along the street we all know as, the “kebab st.” Although very unhealthy, very tasty. But along with eating out, I would come home to a meal my host mother would prepare and tell myself the deed had to be done. This went on for a while, so I decided I would just not eat out because for one, it wasn’t even healthy, and two because I would always come home to a meal that I didn’t genuinely enjoy because I was still full from the same day. Adding on to that note, my host mom would always give me larger proportions from what I was use to eating back at home. I asked myself if she thought that I was part of the pool of typical Americans that are always seen as unhealthy overeaters and over everything for that matter. Normally back at home, I eat moderate portion sizes of everything I consume, wether it be healthy or not, because too much of anything isn’t ever good. Some of the meals she prepares for me I feel like are sort of like your typical quick and easy meals that don’t require much work. Although not every meal requires a long process to make it nutritional. For example, some of the meals she prepares are straight from the freezer (potatoes, beef paddies, vegetables, etc). These sorts of meals I feel like are probably priced the same, or maybe cheaper than any of the typical frozen foods you’d find at you local grocery store. I was able to justify these ideas I had when I went out to buy my own groceries. I noticed that the brand she buys a lot of is “carrefour” which is like your “great value” in the U.S, and those are foods that are similar to other brands, but way cheaper. For breakfast, its kind of the same thing, and even though I am well aware that the French eat croissants and coffee for breakfast, I never pictured cake for breakfast, and as an everyday thing. Where is the protein in that? I find these loafs of soft marble cakes in the pastry sections of the grocery store, and are marked at less than two euros. Now, when I finished my own grocery shopping, I felt I had spent way too much money on the foods I bought, but at the same time felt ok because I knew that what I added to my cart was more natural (less artificial, fewer to no preservatives) and more similar to the foods I ate at home.
Adding on to the fact that I started buying my own groceries, I also started to notice that my calorie intake was considerably lower than when I ate some of the foods she would prepare for me. (I don’t take pictures of the food she makes me for dinner, because I don’t want to offend her. Once when I was in Bretagne, my friends host mom got upset for taking pictures of the meal she was preparing in front of us, so I took pictures of what I would typically make myself for breakfast, lunch, and dinner).
(Normally for breakfast if I am running late, I prepare a slice of toast with bananas, drizzle honey over it, and add oats/nuts on top)
(This salad is what I have for lunch sometimes; Mon Légumier )
(This is what I had for lunch when I was in Bretagne, and course preceding was always an assortment of cheeses.)
(Everyday in Bretagne, my friends mother would prepare apple pie for dessert from the apples they grew in their backyard. Unlike in the U.S where pie is very sugary and much larger in width. Here the pie was very thin and didn’t even feel like I was eating dessert. The figs on top were a great touch, tasty as well.)
(Typical French breakfast. While in Bretagne.)
(What I normally make myself for lunch. Consists of mushed avocados on both slices of toast, tomatoes, spinach, sliced cheese, ham, and an egg (sometimes) but in this picture I didn’t prepare it with one.)
I felt that by preparing some of my own meals, I could possibly regulate/balance my diet again. Although of course not everything she gives me comes straight from the freezer, there are also the canned foods (only kidding). But there are meals that she prepares from scratch that are really delicious. I tend to enjoy these meals way more than I would if I was eating out. I don’t have this constant voice in my head saying, hmm I wonder how many calories are in this, I hope this doesn’t cause any digestion problems, or great, now I have to go run and be extra healthy for the next week. These constant worries that I have been having, I feel are causing me more stress than I should be feeling, and I think I can safely say that stress is slowing down my metabolism. Causing a lot more fat to be stored in my body, since not enough energy is being used up. This idea came to mind when we talked about stress today in class, even though we discussed stress of predation.
Even though I started noticing the weight gain, I found that perhaps eating at home wasn’t the real solution to my problem. I considered how everyones body is different, the way we process our foods (how fast we do), the type of habits families have in the kitchen, and really just the overall quality of foods we choose to select, keep and consume on a daily basis. Also I think that our habits at and from home, have a lot to do with our own cultural dimensions and how we relate to our foods. Some people are known to “wolf down” food and are “oblivious to the sensory and social pleasures of eating”. And then we have other people who’s interest in food exceeds a level that is “seemly” (Pelto, Dufour, Goodman 1). With all of that being said, the mental note I have made for myself is that perhaps the emphasis shouldn’t really be put on the locations where we may enjoy our meals, but rather the food itself and what we choose to put in our bodies. Of course, there are statistics and a bunch of research that proves that otherwise, and even though I agree, I do think that to a certain extent, it depends on our very selves. I’m not an expert on these sorts of things, but I think that throughout my semester and with the continuation of these blogs, I am started to find out more about myself and the food around me (see what I did there?)
Works Cited
Barcaz, Steven. “France Has Made It Illegal For Supermarkets To Waste Food – Punishable By $75,000 Or Jail.” Spirit Science. Spirit Science, 30 May 2015. Web. 07 Oct. 2015. <http://thespiritscience.net/2015/05/30/france-has-made-it-illegal-for-supermarkets-to-waste-food-punishable-by-75000-or-jail/>.
Beardsley, Eleanor. “Why McDonald’s In France Doesn’t Feel Like Fast Food.” NPR. NPR, 24 Jan. 2012. Web. 07 Oct. 2015. <http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/01/24/145698222/why-mcdonalds-in-france-doesnt-feel-like-fast-food>.
Dufour, Darna L., Alan H. Goodman, and Gretel H. Pelto. Nutritional Anthropology: Biocultural Perspectives on Food and Nutrition. New York: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.
“Eat Well Monday.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 28 Mar. 2011. Web. 7 Oct. 2015. <http://www.jhsph.edu/news/stories/2011/healthy-monday-2011/03282011_home-cooked.html>.
Gunst, Kathy. “How To Eat Well The French Way.” Cognoscenti. Cognoscenti, 12 Aug. 2013. Web. 07 Oct. 2015. <http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/08/12/french-food-kathy-gunst>.
Hyman, MD Mark. “How Eating at Home Can Save Your Life.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 9 Jan. 2011. Web. 07 Oct. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/family-dinner-how_b_806114.html>.
“Is Eating out Back In? – The European Magazine.” The European Magazine. The European Magazine, 5 Mar. 2014. Web. 07 Oct. 2015. <http://www.the-european.eu/story-7521/is-eating-out-back-in.html>.
“Mon Légumier.” Mon Légumier. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015. <http://www.mon-legumier.fr/>.
Root, Waverley, and Warren Chappell. The Food of France. New York: Knopf, 1958. Print.
Wyatt, Caroline. “How the French Manage to Stay Slim.” BBC News. BBC, 27 July 2004. Web. 07 Oct. 2015. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3916959.stm>.