Food and Culture - Study Notes (7e)

Introduction

• The American diet is as diverse as its population

  • One in five people in the United States are first or second generation. $frac{1}{5}$

  • In 2007, $75$ different ancestry groups were reported

  • Asians are the fastest growing race or ethnic group

• Each ethnic, religious, or regional group has its own culturally based food habits

What Is Food?

• Definition: Any substance that provides the nutrients necessary to maintain life and growth when ingested

• The term "food" (also called food culture or foodways) refers to the multiplicity of ways in which humans use food, including:

  • Habits

  • Manners

  • Standards

  • Mores

  • Norms

The Omnivore's Paradox

• Humans are omnivorous and can consume/digest a wide selection of plants and animals

• Humans adapt easily to almost all earthly environments

• No single food provides all nutrition for survival; eat a variety

• Need to be flexible yet cautious to avoid harmful foods

Self-Identity

• Incorporation of food into identity: "You are what you eat"

• Assumptions about a total diet influence self-perception

• Stereotypes can shape food choices

• Food preferences can be internalized as personal preferences

• Food as self-identity is evident in dining-out experiences

Children’s Food Preferences

• Children learn food preferences from valued or trusted others

• Quick reference question (from the transcript): Who has the least long-lasting influence? (d)

  • Teachers

  • Peers

  • Older siblings

  • Parents

  • Daycare providers

  • Answer indicated: Parents

Cultural Identity (cont.)

• Foods eaten define who one is, culturally speaking, and conversely, who one is not

  • Religious beliefs

  • Ethnic behaviors

• Foods with cultural ties are often introduced during childhood (comfort foods)

Cultural Identity (cont'd.)

• Diet may establish membership in or exclusion from a cultural group

• Etiquette is another expression of group membership

Status

• Food can signify economic or social standing

• Status foods are used for social interaction

• Many societies regulate commensalism (who can dine together) to establish class relationships

• Social roles: Men, women, children, and servants

• Existence of separate social castes; historical examples include Black segregation prior to U.S. civil rights legislation

What Is Culture?

• Culture comprises values, beliefs, attitudes, and practices accepted by a group

• Enculturation: transmission of culture from generation to generation through language and socialization

• Ethnicity: social identity with shared patterns

• Intraethnic variation exists within a culture

Intracultural Variation

• Intracultural variation refers to cultural differences among individuals within the same larger cultural group

• Despite shared beliefs and norms, individuals differ in adherence to these beliefs and norms

Enculturation and the Acculturation Context

• The process of handing down manners and understandings in common to a culture from one generation to the next is enculturation

• The acculturation context involves adaptation to a new majority society

• Bicultural refers to complementary cultures: combining attitudes and customs of two nations/peoples/ethnic groups

• Assimilation is fully merging into a new culture

• Ethnocentric perspective evaluates others using one’s own values

The Acculturation Process (cont'd)

• Ethnorelativism: assumes all cultural values have equal validity; recognizing and accepting other cultures as viable alternatives

• Prejudice: directed hostility toward a person of a different cultural group

Cultural Identity (revisited)

• Cultural identity is linked to foods and etiquette, and to group membership and social regulation of dining

Cultural Food Habits

• Physiologic group foods are reserved for, or forbidden to, a specific group

  • India: no papaya ripe or raw for pregnant women

  • China: no raw foods or sushi for pregnant women

  • Philippines: no coffee or other black foods for pregnant women

Core and Complementary Foods Model

• Core foods: staples in the daily diet; typically complex carbohydrates

• Secondary foods: widely but less frequently consumed (examples: chicken, lettuce)

• Peripheral foods: eaten sporadically; reflect individual preference

• Diagram relationships: Core Foods —> Secondary Foods —> Peripheral Foods; Peripheral Foods are eaten according to preference

Flavor Principles

• Food preparation methods and seasoning transform feeding into eating

• Food variability and preparation for cooking (cooking, preserving, seasoning)

• Significance of herbs and spices:

  • Improves palatability (e.g., salt, chile peppers)

  • Preserves meat

  • Provides familiarity as part of the omnivore's dilemma: effectively, but with caution, food should be recognizable across generations

  • Helps classify foods culturally

Meal Patterns and Meal Cycles

• Based on dining at least once per day in a culture

• Reveals clues about complex social relations and significance of events

• How to decode: note which foods constitute a meal within a culture

• Cycles in which meals occur: largest meal at noontime or evening; number of meals per day

• Feasting and fasting periods; special foods or ingredients for celebrations; partial or total fasting on a regular cycle

What Constitutes a Meal?

• Order in which foods are served

• Appropriateness for the meal or situation

• Person who prepares the meal

• Culturally specific preparation rules

• People who eat the meal

• Portion size

Developmental Perspective of Food Culture

• Structural Changes and Food Culture Change (Table 1.1 reference)

  • Globalization: Local to worldwide organizations

  • Modernization: Muscle to fueled power

  • Urbanization: Rural to urban residence

  • Migration: Original to new settings

• Food Culture Change processes

  • Consumerization: Indigenous to mass-produced foods

  • Commoditization: Homemade to manufactured foods

  • Delocalization: Producers to consumers only

  • Acculturation: Traditional to adopted foods

• Indigenous: native

Individual Food Habits

• Eating choices are driven by: what is obtainable, what is acceptable, what is preferable

• Dietary domain is determined by availability and what is edible vs inedible

Individual Food Habits (cont'd)

• Immediate concerns: cost, taste, convenience

• Self-expression: well-being, variety

Food Availability

• Local ecological considerations and geographical features

• Indigenous vegetation, native animal populations

• Human manipulation of resources

• Seasonal variations and climatic events

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

Consumer Food Choice Model

• Explains factors influencing individual decisions within a predetermined food sphere

• Participants: Children, Adults

• Key drivers: Convenience, Self-Expression, Cost, Food Choice, Well-Being, Taste, Variety, Physiology/Metabolism, Health Outcomes

Consumer Food Choice Model (cont'd)

• Food selection is primarily motivated by taste, including:

  • Color

  • Aroma

  • Flavor

  • Texture

Taste

• Receptors on the tongue for: Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter

• Umami: proposed by some researchers

• Food choice driven by inborn preference for flavors from sugars and fats

• Bitter linked to toxic compounds; flavor principles influence taste

Roles of Basic Tastes

• Sweet: ensures adequate carbohydrate intake for energy

• Sour: helps detect ripeness and prevents toxin intake

• Salty: regulates body water; ensures adequate salt intake

• Bitter: protects against poisonous substances

• Umami: supports protein intake for growth and maintenance

Cost

• Income level is the most significant sociodemographic factor in predicting selection

• In poorer societies, price matters more than taste

• In wealthier societies, food choices change with other factors

• Local dietary domain affects prices

Other Factors

• Convenience: fast-food meals in urban societies

• Self-expression: follow or ignore conventions related to ethnicity, religion, and region

• Self-identity: vegetarian, gourmet, etc.

• Advertising promises: food-related pleasure; perceived physical and spiritual well-being

• Age, gender, body image, and state of health influence food choices

• Variety: psychological basis for trying new foods

Diversity in the U.S. Population

• 2060 Projected US Population by Percentage (categories listed in slide): White, Black, Native American/PI, Asian, Mixed Race, and others (percentages presented in the slide)

• 2014 Projected US Population by Percentage (categories listed in slide): White, Black, Native American/PI, Asian, Mixed Race, and others (percentages presented in the slide)

Diversity in the Canadian Population

• 2006 census included an open-ended question about ethnicity

  • Broader picture of ancestry/family history

• Immigration has significantly increased population growth

• Recent immigration primarily from Asia and the Caribbean

• Three largest minority groups: Chinese, South Asian, and Blacks

Ethnicity and Health

• Not all in the United States enjoy equal health; disparities exist in:

  • Mortality rates

  • Chronic disease incidence

  • Access to care

Factors Impacting Poor Health Status

• Poverty (connects to debates like "Does Hunger Cause Obesity?")

• Ethnicity with caveats given contextual factors

• Low educational attainment

• Immigrant status

Ethnicity Data for Type 2 Diabetes (Table 1.2)

• Diagnosed adult diabetes prevalence by race/ethnic background (CDC 2014 data):

  • Non-Hispanic Whites: $7.6\%$

  • Asian Americans: $9.0\%$

  • Chinese: $4.4\%$

  • Filipinos: $11.3\%$

  • South Asians: $13.0\%$

  • Other Asian Americans: $8.8\%$

  • Hispanics: $12.8\%$

  • Central and South Americans: $8.5\%$

  • Cubans: $13.9\%$

  • Mexican Americans: $13.9\%$

  • Puerto Ricans: $14.8\%$

  • Non-Hispanic Blacks: $13.2\%$

  • American Indians/Alaska Natives: $15.9\%$

• Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014 National Diabetes Statistics Report

Intercultural Nutrition

• Study of food habits applied to determine nutritional status and to implement dietary change

• Example: 24-hour dietary intake record

• Pitfalls in culturally sensitive nutrition applications:

  • Terminology differences

  • Stereotypical assumptions

Intercultural Nutrition (cont'd)

• Classifying food habits by nutritional impact:
  1) Foods with positive health consequences to be encouraged
  2) Neutral food behaviors with neither adverse nor beneficial effects
  3) Food habits unclassified due to insufficient culturally specific information
  4) Food behaviors with demonstrable harmful effects on health that should be repatterned

Tips for Health Care Professionals

• Combine qualitative and quantitative measures

• Acquire a cultural perspective

The American Paradox (cont'd)

• American cooking adapts to current and emerging food trends:

  • The California sushi roll

  • Tamale pie

  • Ahi burger

  • Tofu lasagna

• Americans are increasingly accepting changes in what they eat

• Reflective prompt: If you were attending a potluck, what food would you bring?