My Year Of Meats Summary

Food can partially shape a person's cultural identity. Geeta Kothari explores the cultural nuances between American and Indian food in the essay, “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” She expresses this through the symbolism of food, growing up and living between two different cultures. Kothari begins her story as a nine-year-old child curiously wanting to eat the same foods as American children: tuna salad sandwiches and hot dogs. She does not have the guidance from her mother regarding American food and culture. Kothari’s mom curbs the curiosity by reluctantly letting her daughter indulge in a can of tuna fish. Kothari describes the open can of tuna fish as “pink and shiny, like an internal organ” and she wondered if it was botulism (947). The way

“Fast Food Nation” written by Eric Schlosser is an interesting, philanthropic read that was produced to promote the welfare of others in a benevolent way (1). Schlosser does this by informing society of the horrific events, mistreatment, and heartless doings for which the meatpacking industry has inflicted upon society. Throughout the read, Schlosser elaborates on the health situations regarding the workers by listing numerous stories and factual information. While supporting his claim, this information captures the reader’s attention and demonstrates how genuine the read actually is.

My Year of Meats displays the multitude of definitions that people use when talking about authenticity. Ozeki shows readers how authenticity can be an subjective view, varying from person to person. It’s important that reality shows, especially “My American Wife!,” be seen as authentic — how else would BEEF-EX sell their product if it didn 't seem realistic? The book also touches on the relationship of wholesomeness and authenticity. John Ueno often has “disagreements” with Akiko, who tends to rate “authenticity” and “wholesomeness” far away from each other when watching “My American Wife!”

Paula J. Johnson, a curator at the National Museum of American History, says that foods such as wasabi, Sriracha, and hummus would have been considered “foreign foods” 50 years ago, but today they are common, everyday staples for many people across America. Ramanathan briefly states before this that the only constant in American foods is global influence and then goes on to say that it’s not uncommon in modern times for people to eat, for example, Thai food for lunch and then Italian for dinner. She writes that America has people from all backgrounds, cultures, and countries and their influences are present everywhere, especially the food. In America today, there are so many influences on our foods that using the term ethnic to describe them makes it sound foreign when the food is something people eat every

During this semester, we discussed many interesting topics that touched directly the main direction of locavores. The concept of locavores is relatively new and the food industry and represents the values of local food that are a healthy food for our society. I was interested in an interesting article called “Locavores, Feminism, and the Question of Meat” by Kathy Rudy. This article discusses the relationship of feminism with locavorism and how this feminist approach relates to meat. Opinions about meat are distributed; many believe that meat should not be present in our diet, while others believe that meat satisfies the demand of buyers. That is, opinions about meat are always divided into 2 categories; this is also how to divide people into meat eaters and vegetarians. As I understand, the feminists in turn very much approve and absolutely support local food and especially local meat. Let us return to what is local food for us and how important it is for us. Local food comes from a variety of activities, such as environmental sustainability and nutritional value of taste. Local food pushes people back to start cooking and enjoying labor, as well as participating in home food.

Have you ever been in a rush, low on cash, and looking for something to eat so you didn’t really have a choice but to grab a burger with fries at your local fast food place? Have you ever paused or stopped to think about where the burger really came from, or the process that went in to be made? The Food Inc documentary investigates and exposes the American industrial production of meat, grains, and vegetables. Robert Kenner the producer of the film makes allegations in this film and he explores how food industries are deliberately hiding how and where it is our food is coming from. He emphasizes that we should find out where our food comes from and why is it that the food industry does not want us to know. Food Inc. does not only uses compelling images, such as hundreds of baby chickens being raised in spaces where they do not see an inch of sunlight, it also includes the speeches and stories of farmers, families, government officials, and victims of the food industry. The four current problems facing today’s food industry are the reformed usage of the false advertisement within the labeling of products , mistreatment of farmed animals, and the harmful chemical in our meats. The documentary Food Inc uses very persuasive tactics that demonstrates strong elements of pathos, ethos, and logos make an effective appeal, while uncovering the dark side of the food industry.

Looking back at the article Nacirema, I feel my daily routines are weird and tradition as a Chinese. After reading the article Nacirema, it shows that the belief of American think their culture is superior to others, they tendency to view other cultures from their own views. Some of the traditional culture, maybe looks weird in another people’s eye. For example, as a Chinese, we eat chicken feet, duck feet, and chicken viscera which American people don’t like it. We like to have a morning tea with family to eat dimsum, deep-dried dough sticks, steamed buns, tofu pudding, noodles, and rice for breakfast, but the American people like to have some coffee, milk, eggs, fired potatoes, cereal, toast, and pancake. I like salty stuff, but American

In Jessica Harris’s “The Culinary Season of my Childhood” she peels away at the layers of how food and a food based atmosphere affected her life in a positive way. Food to her represented an extension of culture along with gatherings of family which built the basis for her cultural identity throughout her life. Harris shares various anecdotes that exemplify how certain memories regarding food as well as the varied characteristics of her cultures’ cuisine left a lasting imprint on how she began to view food and continued to proceeding forward. she stats “My family, like many others long separated from the south, raised me in ways that continued their eating traditions, so now I can head south and sop biscuits in gravy, suck chewy bits of fat from a pigs foot spattered with hot sauce, and yes’m and no’m with the best of ‘em,.” (Pg. 109 Para). Similarly, since I am Jamaican, food remains something that holds high importance in my life due to how my family prepared, flavored, and built a food-based atmosphere. They extended the same traditions from their country of origin within the new society they were thrusted into. The impact of food and how it has factors to comfort, heal, and bring people together holds high relevance in how my self-identity was shaped regarding food.

Media has a strong impact on the way we perceive what is good or bad. In the end it is all about money and not about the welfare of people. The media will manipulate ideas around to persuade us to see only the good side but not the bad. Due to the patriarchal nature of our society, women aren’t in any leading media stories instead the appealing women are telling the stories. In the novel, My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki, features a Japanese-American documentary filmmaker Jane Takagi-little in the show “My American Wife,” sponsored by the BEEF-EX to promote meat consumption of the people in Japan. They show how the media want American to be seen as attractive white women cooking in their show. Jane tries to use the power of the media to show authentic American housewives by including different types of women. She also exploit BEEF-EX of their manipulative use of media to show the dark secret behind their meat and Using the media is how they promote their meat as healthy meat.

Indeed, Pollan’s views appear to be convincing since the different cultures in America offering a large variety of traditional food dishes causes a problem in food choices. As a consequence, Pollan mentioned, the mindset of American’s about, “what should we eat for dinner?” is caused by the food options in America being very diverse and not limited.

America have a variety of food with no staple food to eat with every meal, unlike in Vietnam where the food is more exotic, but very easily to get sick of. Both countries daily meals consist of cooked goods, vegetables, and a variety of foods. Daily routine for eating is the same for both countries consisting of breakfast, lunch and dinner. But where there are similarities, there are differences such as the food cultures. Both the countries have difference regions, so of course each region vary on what they eat, and what they have access to. In America, the southern region’s foods are different than the cooked foods in other regions. In the same way, the foods that the southern region

In Korea, the supply of Japanese foodstuffs was decreasing, threatening the ability of settlers to maintain a Japanese diet and not submit to using the food of the colonized. Lee explains that, “In this context, rituals of displaying Japanese cultural membership in the motherland at the family dining table took on a greater importance.” Japanese mothers felt that the body of the Japanese nation was at stake. The meals that all Japanese mothers fed their families were supposed to cultivate a national identity, and at the same time nourish a national body: “A mother’s responsibility was to conform to the cost-effective criteria of a national diet that also demanded maximizing nutrition.” These concerns put pressure on Japanese women to prepare meals to both literally and theoretically nourish the Japanese nation by feeding their families thoroughly nutritious—and thoroughly Japanese—meals.

The meat industry today is not what it was nearly a century ago. While improvements are thought to have been made, an ever changing society has brought upon new problems that have been piled on to the previously existing ones. While these problems are not like those found in The Jungle, they do parallel how by exposing what is going on in the meat industry; new regulations would be the answer to the noted problems. The increased demand for meat has made it a rushed mutated production instead of a means to raise livestock for consumers. Taking into consideration the demand for cheap meat that will be used for in quick and high demanded products such as frozen and fast food, this demand of meat has greatly skyrocketed. Animals whose sole

The cattle industry produces vast amounts of strain in the environment. It is energy inefficient, pollutes water, occupies many acres of land, and deteriorates the health of the people who abuse its consumption. The government subsidizes this industry. Therefore, the price paid for meat doesn’t reflect the environmental hazards involved in the process. In order to protect our health and the health of the environment we should pay close attention to our food choices and make sure we don’t support industries that degrade it.

However, their long cumulative traditional values of being reserve, following the group opinion, borderline hierarchy, avoiding consequence (Hofstede, 2016)would interfere with the process. Therefore, it is undeniable that Japanese would struggle with their collective self when interacting and absorbing new culture elements when the nation finally decided to match up with the world. It was what originated the crossbreed food, the yoshoku, the combination which takes a form that can be handled either way that comforts the people. It is still true to this day where a lot of restaurant that labeled as western (e.g Italian, French…) provide the utensils of both chopsticks and western dining fork/knife/spoon for