Lauren Ortega
Human Diet
Blog #3
Food. Just think about that word for a second. Think about the things you eat from day to day, think about how far that food has come to end up on your plate, think about the process it must have taken to make that food item what it looks, feels, and tastes like. Aside from counting the calories, fats and proteins you’re putting into your body, do you ever think about the actual food itself? What I am trying to get at, is that we don’t really take the time to think about our food, instead we just quickly satisfy our hunger when our stomach tells us we are hungry. I have been in Angers, France for about two months and some days now. Throughout that time, I feel like I have gotten to know my body more than ever. I realized that when I was back at home in Houston and sometimes Mexico, all of the food I would eat was typically selected for me and sometimes prepared, so I never really took the time to grasp the fact that I had it easy. I never had to worry about the kinds of food I would intake while being at home, and I never really cared to weigh myself like I do now, because my diet was so balanced that I knew weight gain wouldn’t be a problem.
In my last blog post I talked about how perhaps eating at home wasn’t the real solution to maintaining a good/balanced diet. 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 personal cultural boundaries and how we relate to the kinds of foods we eat. Although I still believe that eating out at restaurants can never really relate to the way we eat at home (because we are our own personal chef’s and we get prepare what we desire), I can’t say that eating at home would necessarily be the key to maintaining a healthy diet. Sometimes when people leave their home to study abroad for example, or just plainly leave to a different country for a short or long amount of time, you leave behind the diet you consistently lived by/followed, or you don’t. Some people choose to indulge on all kinds of foods depending on how long they will be away and others simply disregard that and make it their best interest to find ways to not really step out of line from their own routine. For example, on Friday I went on an excursion with my classmates and professors to a chocolate factory and to a vineyard. We made a stop at a local mall in Angers to grab a bite to eat, and I had remembered my French professor telling the class she would be going to Austin for the break. So I asked her how it went, and if she liked it? And one of the things she mentioned was that being in Austin for just one week she gained four pounds. She said her husband was like “woah what did they feed you!” Another example was a case study I read in Nutritional Anthropology, where 14 individuals (diabetics 5 women, 5 men) & 4 non diabetics (2 women, 2 men) went through a 7 week reversion from their typical urban diet to a more traditional diet and lifestyle. “The change from an urban to a traditional lifestyle involves several factors that directly affect insulin sensitivity: increased physical activity, reduced energy intake and weight loss, and change in the overall dietary composition” (Nutritional Anthropology). I used this example because I feel as though what it comes down to is the way we choose to live. Not just in relation to eating, but also in relation to being physically active, our stress levels, our sleep cycles, etc. All of these factors play a huge role in the type of body we all have.
(Milan Expo 2015- Naturally we went to Mexico)
During the break I visited four different cities (London, Milan, Florence, and Rome). While I was traveling I kept track of the kinds of food me and my four friends would eat on a day-to-day basis. Before I talk about the kinds of foods I ate, I want to mention that while I was away I gained a couple of pounds. However I didn’t necessarily fret about the weight gain because I took into consideration how we traveled to 4 different cities in a span of 10 just days. That’s insane. Even I can’t believe we managed to do everything we had on our to-do list in such a short amount of time. When you are constantly on the go and don’t have enough time to really sit down and prepare a healthy meal, you reach for the fastest and quickest option of food that will satisfy your hunger in that moment until the next time you get hungry (Pawlowski). This is something I’m sure most Americans are use to though. In the states and in London (not all of UK by the way), life is so much more fast paced than how it is in France and Italy as I noticed (hence huge difference in culture). The French seem to really find eating as a time to be social and since they do, they can’t be associated with the act of “wolfing down” what they eat (Nutritional Anthropology). “It’s not easy to change a habit like eating speed. It becomes ingrained very early on” (Keller). Perhaps also, our eating habits come from different external pressures/ environmental factors that causes determines our reasons for particular intakes (Vartanian, Wansink, Herman). It doesn’t depend on who you’re with, and how long a conversation over dinner can last, and it also doesn’t depend on where you are. Sometimes when I go to McDonald’s I see that there are a mix of both families and friends who sit and actually enjoy their meals at a slower pace than what we Americans might be known for (like drive-throughs-fast and on the go, this does not exist in France) (Engel). Statistics show that “20% of all American meals are eaten in the car,” so just as fast paced living in the U.S might be, so are a lot of our eating habits (Do Something).With that being said, from the time I have been here something I have noticed is that people in France “eat to live” and people in the U.S “live to eat” (Pelto, Dufour, Goodman). As much as I hate to say it, while I was visiting these cities I was most undeniably on the “live to eat” spectrum.
(People at McDonald’s sit and eat, not take to go-they were there for a while)
So that I don’t sound very redundant, I am going to summarize most of the things I ate while I was away, and they all pretty much were the same type of food. While in London, being the expensive city that it is, we found ourselves eating out mostly at McDonald’s or just any fast food restaurant. The only time we didn’t eat fast food was when we went to the famous “fish and chips” restaurant in London. Although the fish was fried to the bone, literally, I felt a little better about not eating a burger. Given that it is an expensive city, I wouldn’t doubt that going grocery shopping (being a healthier option) would be cheaper than just eating out at a restaurant would be(that is also fast and on the go), which is what we were looking for. We were under such a time crunch that whenever we got hungry, we all agreed to find the closest concession stand. It wasn’t difficult to find them because you could spot them on every corner of the city, and naturally since we Americans are very familiar with hot dogs, it was almost as if the concession stands were calling our names. Similarly in Milan, Florence and Rome we were under such a tight schedule that we would only spend the most amount of time eating dinner over lunch and breakfast. While in Italy we would switch from pizza and pasta, and in between we would get some gelato. I promise that is exactly how it went. I wish I could say it wasn’t true, but it is. Everyday we would say to each other, “so whats it gonna be today guys? Pizza or Pasta, what are y’all in the mood for the most?” This in part has a lot to do with what we are the most comfortable in eating. Because back home, pasta and pizza are not just an Italian thing. Although we were already in a different country (Italy), our eating habits (also where we would go eat) didn’t change.
In Florence and Milan for example, we were very close to some “carrefours” and we still didn’t think to buy groceries for the days we were there instead of spending so much on going out to eat (Pope). A typical plate in Italy for pizza of pasta would range from 7-14 euros a plate (also depending on how nice the restaurant was, although those were typically avoided). While rather going to the local grocery store would have cost us about 14 euros each if we bought foods to make sandwiches and for desert, some kind of mousse that they sell in the dairy isles (thats what I prepare for my lunch and sometimes dinner in Angers). I think that while we were in Italy, and even London, two of the main factors that came into play once our stomachs started growling was time and proximity. In all three cities, we didn’t spend a lot of time searching for places to eat. If the menu had pizza or pasta (which they all did) we would just right away agree on it. There was never any if’s or but’s, it was just as simple as that.
(Fish and Chips)
Even better if there was a nearby McDonald’s non of us would hesitate to agree on it and call it a meal (free wifi, cheap, and fast). This is why I wish we had more time, because if we did then we probably wouldn’t have gone out to eat every single day. I think that even though the majority of the group would have agreed on a pizza/pasta place, I would have actually stepped my foot down and said no, lets go get some groceries (which would have been way cheaper) and make something for lunch and dinner. But again as I mentioned earlier, we were under such a tight time constraint that it was very difficult to be selective with the kinds of food we ate.
Since I’ve been back in Angers, I have been doing good about not going out to restaurants along the “kebab street” or going to the infamous pasta place thats right on the corner of the same street. To this day, I find it so funny that a lot of the students from St. Ed’s relied on that food for their everyday lunch meal. Even though the French had similar amounts of time for breaks throughout the school day as the American students, they wouldn’t go to that street as I noticed. Most would sometimes just bring food or go back home to cook. After joining some of the French students to their homes for lunch breaks, I felt like a huge part of me needed to the same, and thats what I did. I went out and bought groceries with my roommate Ally, and we prepared some meals four ourselves when our parents didn’t cook for us. I think that since Ally has been here, it has helped me actually want to go out and buy my own food, because she feels the exact same way. I let her read my blog posts and she just laughed, but took it seriously at the same time. When I finished filling up my cart (very colorful by the way; fruits, greens of all sorts, etc) I went down to the cash register and remember paying a total of 35 euros. 35 EUROS. If you remember earlier from when I said that each plate of pizza or pasta including a bottle of water would cost EACH person 7-14 euros, you can begin to see how perhaps the smartest decision was to head down to the grocery store. Lately that is what I’ve been doing, and as far as my weight goes (couldn’t forget to check in on that), I haven’t gained or lost any. But I feel much more energetic than how I did when I was eating out every single day while I was on break, and that mostly came from steering clear of the consistent eating out (WCIN). I will continue to keep track of my eating habits, and see what becomes of me and my diet further down the road. Until next blog!
(Food me and Ally would prepare at home)
Work Cited
“Changing Your Habits: Steps to Better Health.” PsycEXTRA Dataset (2008): n. pag. The Weight-Control Information Network. U.S Department of Health and Human Services, June 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. <http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-topics/diet/changing-habits/documents/changing_your_habits.pdf>.
Dufour, Darna L., Alan H. Goodman, and Gretel H. Pelto. Nutritional Anthropology: Biocultural Perspectives on Food and Nutrition. New York: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.
Engel, Pamela. “I Went to McDonald’s in France and Discovered How the US Is Doing It All Wrong.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 13 Apr. 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. <http://uk.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-in-france-is-better-than-in-america-2015-4?r=US&IR=T>.
Rubaum-Keller, Irene. “Why Are You Eating So Fast?” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Mar. 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-rubaumkeller-/mindful-eating_b_2908336.html>.
Pawlowski, A. “Why Is America the ‘no-vacation Nation’?” CNN. Cable News Network, 23 May 2011. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. <http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/23/vacation.in.america/>.
Pope, Tara. “A High Price for Healthy Food.” Well A High Price for Healthy Food Comments. The New York Times, 05 Dec. 2007. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/?_r=0>.
“Strong Reasons To Eat Slowly.” 9. Health Assist, 02 Jan. 2015. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. <http://www.healthassist.net/food/slow/slow-eating.shtml>.
Vartanian, Lenny, Peter Herman, and Brian Wansink. “Are We Aware of the External Factors That Influence Our Food Intake?” American Psychological Association 27.5 (2008): 533-38. American Psychological Association, 2008. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. <https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/231463/original/Vartanian%252Bet%252Bal%252B%2525282008%252529.pdf>.
“11 Facts About American Eating Habits.” 11 Facts About American Eating Habits. Do Something, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. <https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-american-eating-habits>.