Speed Friending: A Brief Analysis

For quite some time now, food has been at the forefront of people’s lives throughout the world. Eating has become a tradition, as food keeps us alive, healthy, and well. The importance of agriculture and farming is something that should not go unnoticed. Even just sharing a meal with somebody is intimacy, it has brought us closer together than ever before. Marcie Cohen Ferris, author of “The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Religion”, takes a closer look at how food has brought a sense of togetherness but also the separation and tension that is running rampant through society today. She examines ideas of segregation and civil rights, and how food was able to play a pivotal role in some of America’s most historic moments.

Our First Lady, Michelle Obama used this quote during her speech to call attention to the problems of healthy food accessibility in grocery stores in some communities in Chicago. She addresses that this is a community matter and every one must be involve to make changes. Without change in the community individuals will not have opportunities to make healthier food choice ("Michelle Obama in Chicago," 2011). People who have options of vegetables and fish products in grocery stores eat better and will have better outcome on health (Edberg, 2007)

Food has been advertised as a way for men and women to demonstrate their love and to insure its requital. What she is saying is that people place relationships on food. She feels that people think that a way to win a person's heart is with what you make in the kitchen. Also, Kilbourne noticed that a lot of the ads have a lot more women than men and they women in these ads are featured as feeding themselves and not the man, like most of the male ads feature. She said that these ads feature a lot more women than men because after a psychological research was done, the results came out that women use food to deal with their loneliness and disappointment and also in a way to connect. When things do not go a certain why, it is assumed that women eat the pain away.

In the story “Here Everything is Possible”, the author speaks about how the quality of food brings people together. Sitting down and having a conversation, eating at a dinner table or a restaurant, provides something extraordinary to happen. It is known that when getting to know another individual you go out for food or coffee. Ironically the food isn't the important part, the going to get food is just an excuse to create conversation and deepen the relationship. Many youth groups use the technique of eating out as a way to get more kids to come to the church. Usually when there’s food involved people want to come and while they're there, eating the delicious food, they create quality relationships and want to come back. Food is a big part

What’s for Dinner? This question, and others like it, are asked countless times every day. In America, food is everywhere. One has only to travel a little down a city road to spot multiple restaurants, grocery stores, and convenience stations all promising fast and cheap consumables. With so much to choose from, what difference does it really make? The plethora of options and readily available meals disguise the power of one’s consumption choices. However, what we choose to eat greatly impacts our health, environment, and global impact. So what is for Dinner? Although it is a simple question, the reply to this query has the potential to have an impact on the rest of the world.

Typically as someone grows up, a common event shared amongst millions around the world is to eat out with your peers. This is a spontaneous event in which friends gather in their free time to dine on great food. When people start gathering together it creates an atmosphere that allows for the enjoyment of both the food and experience. While peers often meet with one another,what really brings this group of friends together? It is the food that brings them together. Food a necessity;to all living beings in order to sustain a stable and healthy life. However, in this case there’s more to food than it being a necessity. Food brings peers together because it creates a sense of enjoyment and reforms the bonds between peers.

Food has long been used as a tool for dialogue and the fostering of positive feelings (Chapple-Sokol 2013). The ‘breaking of bread’ and the drinking of wine/tea are used by many cultures as a symbolic representation of the coming together of people. After all, to share a dinner table means to share life and a sense of ‘homeliness’ together (Hage 1997) even if only for the briefest moment. This idea - that food is a tool that encourages dialogue and influences our emotions and actions positively - forms the basis of my research. My study argues that when ‘youth’ of different cultural backgrounds prepare and consume food together, it can contribute to the ‘everyday peace’ in Melbourne.

Do you know that habitual family dinner as a norm has a surprising change on children’s life? Sharing meals as a family is the most influential activity that can prevent the weakening of societies. Indeed, the successful family is the core that builds stronger societies. Everyone needs to eat. Barbara Fiese and Marlene Sehwartz illustrate that “Shared mealtimes are an immensely symbolic event, not only for specific families, but as a barometer of community health” (“Reclaiming the family”). However, it is not easy for many families to eat together due to the pace of life. It is particularly crucial for parents to recognize the importance of eating together as a family and the huge difference that promotes a healthy

Food is an imperative element of society that has continually brought people together all around the world. From a BBQ in East Tennessee to eating Chow Mein in China, food holds a deep cultural meaning and power. It has the means to be a weapon of war, and is a force of development. It is an organizer and a tool to bring people together, and can be influenced by our social status. Needless to say, as this world moves into a more modern way of life, the traditional ways of living are visually fading away.

The first individual I interviewed was my little brother, Ikenna. The community in which we live in influences not only his eating habits but the citizens the questions I strategically asked him, in my opinion, were framing the concept of community, food, family, culture and its intercorrelation. I intend to link these factors to show how the socioeconomics of a community, and individuals culture has prodigious effects on the food consumption and habits of its constituents.

“MOM!!! There’s nothing to eat in here!” hollers Caleb as he inspects the innards of the considerably large refrigerator in his kitchen. The most depressing element of the quote above is that the refrigerator was jam-packed with bountiful options for my dining pleasure, just nothing that would completely satisfy my pallet in that moment of time. I, without knowledge, have succumbed to the North American culture of being ungrateful for the possessions and opportunities given to me. Recently watching and reading about differing cultures in other countries has brought to my attention that the average day passes without me realizing the numerous blessings in my life. A small group of African men has exposed my disregard for simplicity and

The necessity for sustenance is ubiquitous. Food chemically provides the human body with the needed glucose in order to convert ATP to usable energy in cells. This chemical conversion is essential for human existence. Though the primary importance of food is sustenance; humanity has elevated this biological imperative beyond survival. Food is symbolic, it connects people. Eating is a collective activity shared amongst humanity; therefore food allows interconnectivity and exchange between otherwise vastly different societies. There may be no universal type of food, but the enjoyment and celebration of food transcends our basic differences and allows for the introduction of cultural exchange. Thus food can become a road map of an individual’s

Food is a very important trait of living. It is the first of the essentials of life, our biggest industry, our greatest export, our most frequently indulged pleasure, and also the object of considerable concern and dread

Food provides nutrition for humans, but food has more needs than one. As Anderson says, “Venues such as cafés, coffee shops, coffee houses, cafeterias, bars, neighborhood restaurants, and other eateries are vital to social life,” food is essential in building up human relationships (Anderson 125). As a social necessity, food exerts itself as more than an excuse to initiate casual talk. In the films, Tampopo and Eat Drink Man Woman, food operates as a medium to preserve human relationships by the consumption and the physical exchange of food. Despite the two films’ different urban settings, food perpetuates parental, romantic, and student-teacher relationships. Food recalls memories of current and past relationships, and these memories

From its beginning as a science of observation, anthropology has showed great interest in the subject of food and eating habits; hardly any other behavior attracts the attention of human beings as much as the way one eats. What, where, how, how often we eat, and how we feel about food ends up binding us directly to our sense of selves and our social identity. As human beings, we are fostered in very specific environments, surrounded by very specific people with specific beliefs and social habits. Although Boyd-Eaton & Konner (1985) attempted to discover what humans are hard-wired to consume by analyzing the daily nutrition of Paleolithic human beings, the truth is that the way human beings eat is socially, culturally and environmentally inscribed — there is no ideal way to eat, because these socio-cultural dynamics keep changing throughout history. What we learn about food is encompassed in a body of materials that are culturally and historically derived from others, and thus, food and eating habits assume, in this manner, a central position in our social learning.