Cultural Foods M2

Feeding

Animals do this by consuming as much food as necessary for their well-being.

Eating

Humans do this by actively raising and producing food for commerical and just general health benefits.

Symbolic Uses of Food

Relationships (Religion, friendship, etc.)

Association (Amount/Type of food = Status)

Convention (Superstition, tradition, etc.)

Enculturation

How culture is learned by being passed through generations via language and socialization

Ethnicity

Social identity with shared patterns, including food, dress, language, and sometimes beliefs. This defines cultural membership.

Social Organization

One of the 7 Aspects of Culture. It is the way a culture organizes its members into different groups, such as families, friends, religious organizations, social classes, jobs, interest groups, and more.

Language

One of the 7 Aspects of Culture. All cultures have their own for of this, even without a form of writing. Each one share symbols and meanings through commnication. These do not refer exclusively to literal changes in words, but also speaking patterns and the like.

Customs and Traditions

One of the 7 Aspects of Culture. Each culture has their own set of practices and standards that they apply to everday life. These can differ wildly between cultures and social groups. How holidays are celebrated, what music we listen to, etc.

Arts and Literature

One of the 7 Aspects of Culture. The way in which cultures pass information from generation to generation, promoting cultural values and can include art, music, and folk tales.

Religion

One of the 7 Aspects of Culture. Different cultures have different beliefs, with their own gods and other stories associated with them. Monotheism, the belief in one god, includes Christianity and Judaism, polytheism with religions like Hinduism, and atheism, the belief that there is no god. Often a cultures vales are based on their beliefs.

Form of Government

One of the 7 Aspects of Culture. All societies have their own form of this to keep order and protect society, however there are different types. Monarchies used to be more common, but now democracies, republics, and dictatorships are the most common.

Economic System

One of the 7 Aspects of Culture. The use of limited resources to satisfy one’s wants and needs. There are four main types of this:

• Traditional - People produce most of what they need to survive

• Market - Buying and selling of goods and services

• Command - Government is in control of the economy, making most decisions

• Mixed - A mixture of people making their own decisions and the government making decisions

Acculturation

The adaptation to a new majority society, such as when somebody moves to a new country.

Bicultural

Complementary cultures, such as when someone moves to another country and the cultures of both countries are embraced and don’t compete with each other.

Assimilation

Fully merging into a new culture and is more common among second and third generations

Ethnocentric

Using one’s values to evaluate the behaviors of others

Prejudice

Directed hostility toward a person of a different cultural group.

Acculration of Food Habits

Culturally based food habits are often the last practice changed during acculration. Foods most associated with ethnic identity are the most resistant to acculration. Unpopular traditional foods are often the first to go.

Motivations Behind Changing of Food Habits

• Lack of Available native ingredients

• Convenience

• Cost

Cultural Food Habits

Foods tend to vary from culture to culture. For example, in the US, foods are categorized in food groups (protein, dairy, fruits, vegetables, grans) and nutrient groups (macro vs micro).

Culture Based Food Categories

• Cultural superfoods - often staple foods

• Prestige foods - expensive or rare items

• Body image foods - health, beauty, well-being

• Sympathetic magic foods - association through color of form

• Physiologic group foods - rserved for, or forbidden to a specific group

Core Foods

Foods eaten regularly in a person’s diet, and are staples in a daily diet, such as complex carbohydrates like rice, corn, wheat, cassave, yams, and pasta.

Complementary Foods

Foods that make the core foods more enjoyable, such as sauces and seasonings (For example, spaghettic and tomato sauce)

Secondary Foods

Widely but less frequently consumed (consumed one or more times a week, but not daily), such as apples and chicken.

Peripheral foods

Eaten sporadically, and is usually up to individual preference, and is not related to a person’s cultural group.

Flavor Principles

The way food is prepared transforms feeding into eating. Every technique from preparation for cooking, preserving, and seasoning changes the original flavor of the ingredient.

Significance of Herbs and Spices

Spices are important to meals, as they improve palatability (for example, salt and chili peppers), preserve meat, and classifies foods culturally.

Meal Patterns and Meal Cycles

These are usually based upon dining on at least one meal each day in most cultures. They reveal clues about complex social relations and the significance of certain events in society. They are decoded by first noting what types of food constitute a meal within a culture.

Cycles in Which Meals Occur

Usually, the largest meals occur at noontime or evening, as well as there being a certain amount of meals per day.

Feasting or Fasting Periods

Special foods or ingredients for celebrations used during feasting periods, and partial or total fasting ona regular cycle.

Individual Food Habits

Eating choices are made by what is obtainable, what is acceptable, and what is prefereable. Diet is determined by availability and what a person considers edible versus inedible.

Individual Food Choice Factors

• Cost

• Convenience

• Self-Expression

• Well-Being

• Variety

• Taste

Food Availability

Several factors affect this:

• Local ecological considerations, such as weather, soil, water conditions

• Seasonal variations

• Climatic events, like droughts

• Political, economic, and social management of food at the local level

Edile and Inedible Food Model

• Inedible Foods - Poisonous or considered taboo (the most universal food taboo is cannibalism)

• Edible by animals, but not by me (rodents in the US or corn in France, which is mainly used to feed animals)

• Edible by humans, but not by my kind (Foods that are acceptable in some societies but not others, for example, pork is banned in Muslim religion)

• Edible by humans, but not by me (Foods accepted by my society but not by me due to food preferences, religious restrictions, or ethnical considerations)

Taste

One of the factors that determines food choice. The primary factor that motivates food choices.

Cost

One of the factors that motivates food choice. Income level is the most significant sociodemographic factor in predicting selection. In poorer societies, price is more important than taste, while in wealthier societies, food choices change. Local dietary domains affect prices.

Convenience

One of the factors that motivates food choice. Examples include fast-food and frozen meals in urban societies.

Self-Identity

One of the factors that motivates food choice. Examples includes vegetarian and gourmet.

Health and Well-Being

One of the factors that motivates food choice. Depending on one’s health, one may try to eat certain foods with a higher nutritional value.

Ethnic Identity

One of the factors that motivates food choice. Certain cultures have different staple foods that may cause one to gravitate towards certain foods more than others.

Religious Beliefs

One of the factors that motivates food choice. Certain religions have different food restrictions that one may have to follow, such as Jews and Muslims.

Campinha Model of Competence

Outlines a process for cultural competency in health care. Involves steps from cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, cultural encounter, and cultural desire.

Future Healthcare Trends

Move toward cultural competence to guide communities in healthy lifestyle changes, to serve hard to reach places, and to effect change in the health care system.

Ethnicity and Health

Not all in the US enjoy equal health. Disparities are found in:

• Mortality Rates

• Chronic disease incidence

• Access to care

Factors Impacting Poor Health Status

• Poverty

• Low educational attainment

• Immigrant status

Other

• The fastest growing ethnic group in the US is Asians

• Etc.