StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

The Significance of Food in My Life - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
What that role is will depend a great deal upon the individual’s experience and environment and this can result in very highly unique ideas regarding food. It is known that “people…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER92.6% of users find it useful
The Significance of Food in My Life
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Significance of Food in My Life"

The Significance of Food in my Life No matter what part of the world a person is from, food plays a role in their daily routine. What that role is will depend a great deal upon the individual’s experience and environment and this can result in very highly unique ideas regarding food. It is known that “people decide what to eat, when to eat and whether to eat in highly personal ways, based on behavioral or social motives. Those decisions are rooted in family upbringing, ethnic background, religion, the country or region we grow up in, economics and food beliefs.

” How we feel about food therefore reflects a lot about who we are and where we’ve come from. By understanding our own food choices and the significance of food in our own lives, we can gain a clearer understanding of ourselves. For myself, I was born in South Korea and I lived there for the first 19 years of my life. This was very important to how I feel about food because the culture there is very focused on food as a way of bringing the family together and expressing honor and love to each other.

Food is a very important way that the mother can express to the father, the elders and the children that they are important. In South Korea, it is still the elders who are most important in the home and so they are always the ones who get the best helpings of food. As a small child, if I got the best helping, I would feel very, very special, like I was the most important thing to my mother and the one she loved best. My mother always made sure we had enough to eat when we lived in South Korea.

One of the things she made for every meal was Kimchi. Kimchi is a kind of food that is pickled vegetables that have been seasoned to be very spicy. I love to eat Kimchi because I ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day back at home. It makes me feel happy to think about spending time with my family and sharing meals together. Another kind of food that I like to eat because it reminds me of home is spicy soup. Like Kimchi, it was a kind of food that my mother would serve every day.

When I eat these kinds of foods, the spicy flavor reminds me of home and the heat makes me feel very loved. Since I came to the United States, though, I have learned more about proper nutrition. I learned that a lot of spicy foods are not good for the body and that salt intake should be kept low. The kinds of food my mother made were great-tasting and ensured that we had plenty to eat all the time so that we felt loved, but the nutritionists in the United States indicate that it wasn’t the best diet for a long and healthy life.

Because of what I have learned, I have changed my diet so that I don’t eat spicy foods as much and I only buy food that is low in salt content. It is hard to avoid my favorite foods sometimes, but I do this for my health. It is clear to me that food can be a comfort, especially when you are far away from home, but that you can make changes to your diet if you have strong enough reasons. My favorite foods were established by my culture and my environment where I grew up. Kimchi and spicy soup are traditional side dishes where I come from.

Because my mother always made it for us because she wanted us to know that she loved us, I learned to associate these kinds of foods with feelings of love and togetherness. However, after I moved into a new culture and began learning about nutrition and how to stay healthy, I have changed my eating habits to be in keeping with what my mother wanted for me – to live a long, healthy and happy life.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“The Significance of Food in My Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1563302-the-significance-of-food-in-my-life
(The Significance of Food in My Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1563302-the-significance-of-food-in-my-life.
“The Significance of Food in My Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1563302-the-significance-of-food-in-my-life.
  • Cited: 1 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Significance of Food in My Life

The Role of Food in Understanding Chinese Culture

Date: The Role of Food in Understanding Chinese Culture(s) the significance of food in human culture understanding precisely lies in its infinite variability.... Thus, the purpose of this paper is to elucidate the role of food in understanding Chinese culture.... Role of food in understanding Chinese culture Chinese cooking involves the combination of food stuffs.... If food was eaten for survival reasons, then people could be consuming the same type of food measured in carbohydrates, calories, proteins, fats and vitamins....
7 Pages (1750 words) Assignment

Food and Culture Interrelation

The part of food in cultural and religious perform is an essential part of showing admiration and reacting to the needs of people from sort of religious communities.... ultural significance of food and eating is based on social values, meaning, and beliefs than dietary necessities and nutritional standards.... The consumption of food varies from person to person and from society to society.... It depends on many factors why people take different types of food....
6 Pages (1500 words) Report

The Use of Food as Symbol in the Pentateuch

The use of food in this way is not surprising.... The following paper under the title 'The Use of food as a Symbol in the Pentateuch' gives detailed information about food which is used symbolically throughout the Pentateuch.... The symbolic nature of food takes on various forms but centers on a few key themes.... It is difficult for us in a modern society with such a variety of choices and convenience associated with our consumption of food to fully appreciate the day-to-day labor that was required just to get enough food to stay alive in these ancient societies....
7 Pages (1750 words) Case Study

The Preference and Practice of Consuming Comfort Foods

Four major categories of comfort foods exist, depending on the function they play on the person consuming them or the significance placed on them by a given culture.... The psychological effect they play can be used in the management of diseases and in improving life through emotional balance....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Mini Ethnographic Investigation: Food and Celebrations

The methodical learning of the culture, communal and social setup of the operation of life activities is known as Ethnography (Margaret and Schensul, 2010, pp.... Symbolism in Chinese cuisine is an important factor as is symbolism in other parts of life of the Chinese people.... This helps in analyzing the information found with the knowledge of the The festivals and food of China displays the large variety of ethnic groups which reside in the country (Chinese Festival food Recipes for New Year, 2013)....
9 Pages (2250 words) Essay

Cultural Food Comparison Research Paper

hellip; From this research, it is clear that While many cultures viewed egg as a source of food, many cultures did not view it as so.... While many cultures viewed egg as a source of food, many cultures did not view it as so.... However, the eggs that hatched into such birds were not initially eaten as food.... In other parts of the world, such as ancient Rome and China, eggs have been regarded as vital food sources.... The discovery of egg as a nutritious and healthy food source developed its own innovations throughout time as it started first from being eaten raw to being boiled and then being eaten along with....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

How Fast Food Affects American Life

The paper "How Fast Food Affects American life?... states that the easy and the tasty foods that the fast foods provide us have done wonders with respect to saving of the scarcest resource of our life i.... He had predicted that certain large corporations would dominate the food supply of the nation and there would be the homogenization of the American life.... hellip; It is the children who are mainly targeted by the fast food companies which are leading them to obesity....
5 Pages (1250 words) Coursework

Fast Food or Fast Life

The author of the essay "Fast Food or Fast life" states that the health issues of the American population get influenced by various triggers.... Fast-food consumption and lack of efficient physical activities inhibit the body's performance by increasing or decreasing the necessary nutrients past levels the body cannot operate efficiently....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us