Soul Food Is Bad For Your Health Essay

It is a known fact that every human being communicates through language, but perhaps a little known fact that we communicate even through the food we eat. We communicate through food all the meanings that we assign and attribute to our culture, and consequently to our identity as well. Food is not only nourishment for our bodies, but a symbol of where we come from. In order to understand the basic function of food as a necessity not only for our survival, we must look to politics, power, identity, and culture.

Ingredients and recipes for cooking soul food change for varies reasons. Numerous slaves could not read or write, so the recipes were passed along orally. Additionally, soul food cooking changes from region to region dependent upon on settler impact and ingredients special to a particular region. For instance, low country soul food generally alludes to an area along South Carolina's coast. Ingredients special to South Carolina's coast are rice, crabs, oysters, shrimp, and sweet potatoes. In Louisiana, Gumbo is customarily a New Orleans Creole dish. The primary ingredient is okra, or quingombo, a native African plant. Creole food has also been impacted by the Spanish, French, Caribbean and Native Americans settlers (Rhyne, 2015).

Thinking about the importance and significance of food respective to our health, ethnic culture and society can cause cavernous, profound, and even questionable thoughts such as: “Is food taken for granted?”, “Is specialty foods just a fad or a change in lifestyle?”, and even “Is food becoming the enemy.” Mark Bittman, an established food journalist, wrote an article called “Why take food seriously?” In this article, Bittman enlightens the reader with a brief history lesson of America’s appreciation of food over the past decades. This history lesson leads to where the social standing of food is today and how it is affecting not only the people of America, but also the rest of the world.

Neither life nor culture can be sustained without food. On a very basic level, food is fundamentally essential for life, not simply to exist, but also to thrive. A means by which carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, nutrients, and calories are introduced into the body, food is a mechanism of survival. However, on a more abstract level, food is also fundamentally essential for culture by establishing its perimeters and dimensions and in shaping its authenticity and character. Food becomes the

The overall health of the nation should concern every American within the United States. The populous has acquired a bad habit of turning to convenience foods because of availability, taste and comfort. Thus to re-direct the health of the nation, people need to stop crippling their health by convenience foods and replace it with healthy, natural choices, otherwise the health of all will continue to decline.

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.

All ethnic groups have their own language, food, and way of living. Some can even call their food, “soul food.” Soul food can be described as “food made with feeling and care,” but in America, soul food simply refers to African-American cuisine (A History of Soul Food). In Imamu Amiri Baraka’s essay, “Soul Food” he describes how shocked he was to read an article that stated how “African-Americans have no language and no characteristic food.” So he argued against that supposed fact. I too was shocked and am agreeing with Baraka’s argument. African-Americans have had soul food for hundreds of years, if anything that is all they have ever had. Since slaves had no control or choice in life, cooking became a way

Traditionally, the African American diet consisted of leafy green vegetables, fish, poultry, and beans. However, the cooking methods, such as deep frying, the heavy use of gravy, pork fat, and butter add a large amount fat and cholesterol to an otherwise heart-healthy diet. “Soul food” with its fried chicken, fried pork chops, and corn bread have become the traditional comfort food, and there is a large significant placed in the African-American culture on community and family gatherings centered around food. Historically, African-Americans lived a highly active lifestyle that compensated for a higher than average fat content in their diet. As modern trends swing toward a more sedentary lifestyle, the direct result is heart disease rising to be the leading cause of death among African-Americans (Cowling, 2006, p8).

The term Soul Food originated from the cuisine developed by African Slaves mainly from the American South. A dark period in the history of the United States resulted in a cuisine fashion from the meager ingredients available to slaves and sharecropper black families. The meat used was usually the least desirable cuts and vegetables, some bordering weeds, were all that was available for the black slaves to prepare nutritious meals for their families. From the meager ingredients involved a cuisine that is simply yet hearty and delicious.

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill stated, “ If you want to wipe out an entire generation of people and engage in a 21st century genocide, all you have to do is keep doing what we are doing and deprive people of access to healthy food.” Bryon Hurt 's documentary Soul Food Junkies challenges and informs people 's way of thinking when it comes to soul food. Questioning if dishes such as fried chicken, buttery mac and cheese, smokey ribs and greens in pork fat are significant to the black culture or just a recipe for an early death. So, he used his father 's story, Jackie Hurt, about his ways of not giving up his artery-clogging classic soul food. At one point, Bryon Hurt wanted to be just like his father so he ate just like him. Especially on Sundays for the breakfast ritual which included grits, cheesy eggs, salt pork and bacon on toast. He felt that was a way to bond with his father. Jackie Hurt was not only consuming soul food dishes on a daily basis but he never exercised. This lead to serve weight gain, but he was not changing his eating habits even though his family did. He was later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that took his life so young.

Food, has a specific meaning to all of us; for some it is a form of nourishment, for others it is a cultural act,

When flipping through the thousands of documentaries on the many streaming services there are three main criteria come to mind; one looks for the entertainment factor, credentials of the information the and lasting affect it leaves on the viewer. The documentary Soul Food Junkies directed and produced by the filmmaker Byron Hunt defiantly has an interesting take on these main criteria. The documentary holds ones attention with comedy and relatability with a family aspect, though interesting there’s plenty of experts and hard facts even though personal option is projected from the producer. The documentary does leave he viewer with questions about their own habits and that of the ones around them. Soul Food Junkies hits and misses the criteria

Anyone can eat soul food on any particular day of the year. However, it is something distinctive about preparing and eating soul food on Thanksgiving Day. Soul food is considered to be fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, breaded fried okra and yams. The preparation and consumption of soul food have been a staple in my family’s tradition for many generations. Perchance the food tastes better because of the cool crisp air, or maybe it’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. I honestly don’t know why, but I feel like this should be a paten scientific theory. Everything just feels right on this day, as if the world halts for a split second and it is at harmony. Possibly that is why the food is cooked to perfection. Even the process of preparing the meal is practically better than eating the food.

In “The Pleasures of Eating” Wendell Berry wants the reader to recognize that eating is a cultural act. He believes we are eaters not consumers and that we should have more knowledge about the food we eat. Berry wants the reader to questions where the food is coming from, what condition is it produced in and what chemicals may it contains. He has found that the food industries blind us to what we are consuming and the effect it has on us. At last Berry believes that we must eat responsibly to live free.

Food is looked at as nourishment, an instrument of solidarity, and a mechanism of community (Theres Nothing Like Church Food). Something that we take for granted everyday is a major support system for not only our bodies, but for our families and making the community in which we live in