Food Diary

Breakfast! (29th and 30th)

I usually don't eat breakfast, but my fathers been worried about my health, so I've been eating pretty much the same breakfast every morning- either an apple or yogurt. I really enjoy eating yogurt because after eating it, I feel satisfied and not full, and I'm tired of eating apples. Plus I get really angry and feel like I contradict myself when I eat an apple that has a sticker that says 'Product of Chile" or 'Product of Maine'. So I've been choosing to eat yogurt. The yogurt is really delicious and with the mixture of 'all natural' granola and a teaspoon of honey, it tastes great. ALSO! In between breakfast and lunch for the past few weeks I've been eating almonds and yellow grapes (2 handfuls of each)

Lunch! (29th and 30th)

I made my lunch out of everything that sounded yummy in my fridge. My dad thought it was weird that I put jelly in my sandwich- two days in row, but I really liked the combination. It gave a sweetness to my sandwich that I enjoyed. So the ingredients in the sandwich were guest-star blackberry jelly, pesto, sun dried tomato and garlic humus, cheese, and sun dries tomato spread. Here are the ingredients:

Dinner (29th)

My phone died during this dinner, so I wasn't able to take a photo, but my family and I ate dinner at this Mexican restaurant called 'El hecho' or something like that on Bowery street for my brothers birthday. I ate some weird tasting mushroom burrito, and didn't enjoy it that much, so I put extra salsa on it to spice it up. I don't think it was real Mexican food. I've never heard of any mushroom burrito.

Dinner (30th)

I wasn't planning on eating any dinner tonight, but after SAT tutoring, I walked into my dads office and he had left half of a sandwich, so I ate it. It had portobello mushrooms, tomato, lettuce, and marinara sauce. The only thing I didn't enjoy about the sandwich was that it was made with potato bread (yuck!)

Overall thoughts:

I think that in the past few days I've eaten pretty healthy. I think that I've begun to eat more like this not only to be healthy, but to feel good physically- and mentally. When I used to eat meat, I would feel drained, tired and sick so often, but now I feel a lot more energized and awake. This could also be as a result of drinking a lot more water, but either way, I feel a lot better. In history class, the teacher questioned us 'how might you know that buying food from green markets is healthier than fast food'. Some students answered that it was because our 'dominant discourses' told us that they were. I think it's because I've felt the difference. My body and mind has literally felt the difference between post- fast food and post- 'healthy' food. While we thought about how to answer the question in class, my teacher played a song with the chorus: 'All i know is that I know nothing'. I think that this is significant because its important to understand that there's always more room for acquiring knowledge.

Side note: I realized there was a clear sticker on my phone camera that was making all of those photos turn out blurry.

Dominant DIscourses regarding Contemporary foodways in the U.S.

There are growing concerns about the way food is produced in America and the diets of many American's. According to the New York Times, as many as 1/3 of all Americans are obese and obesity is now the number one health challenge facing children throughout the United States. Even in NY City a recent article in the NY Times reported that 22% of all New Yorkers are obese.  In many communities, especially poor communities of color, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure are pervasive and contributing to shorter lives and disability.  Communities like East Harlem and Chinatown have some of the highest diabetes rates in the nation.

As a result of these problems, the dominant discourses about food are gradually changing. Instead of food being promoted largely as a source of pleasure, more and more articles and advertisements are warning the public about the health dangers associated with poor nutrition. An example of a story warning the public about health dangers associated with poor nutrition appeared on CNN on Bill Clinton's health. His doctors had told him that he had arterial blockage and has since only eaten vegan friendly foods, which has resulted to him losing 24 pounds. 

This is how we get down.

Tonight's Dinner:

• kale
• brown rice
• cauliflower
• salad
• fish (caught yesterday by our dinner guests)

Photo taken by my phone (apologies for the bad quality).

My dad has recently gotten married with my step mother- Allyson. Personally, I've seen the changes in the foods that we used to eat and the food that we eat today. As a result of their relationship, my father has lost some weight, and we've all begun to eat a lot healthier. One example is the rice that we eat. My family used to mostly eat white or yellow rice. Delicious as it is, it was difficult for me to adjust to only eating brown rice, which is what we do now. In addition, we generally only buy organic fruits and vegetables and eat much less meat than ever before(my father's the only meat eater now). We also hardly ever have junk food in our cabinets like we used to.

My father's parents are Caribbean immigrants, so he did not grow up eating typical American food.  For example, while other kids were eating Wonder bread, his mother would only buy whole wheat. She never took them to places like Mcdonald's or Burger King, never bought soda and always insisted that they had vegetables with every meal. This is probably the reason why my father likes to cook and eat at home, because he grew up eating that way.

My mother was born in Lima, Peru and was raised eating the rich variety of foods that are made in that South American nation. Her grandmother raised chickens and she grew up eating food produced on there farm. When we were small, my mother insisted that we only eat food that we made rather than baby food purchased in the store. This is probably the reason why I grew up enjoying vegetables- since my mother forced me to eat them from the time my teeth came in. Although my mother believed in eating natural foods, she also enjoyed spicy foods from Peru.

Given that eating healthy has been passed down throughout my family, I don't find it difficult to understand why I eat the way I do. I've become vegetarian this past summer due to learning about the way food and especially meat is processed. It's all about food justice, baby.

Fast Food Insights and Green Market Realizations

Our first stop was at Wendy's, the fast food restaurant. We went in a large group and sat down. Some students seemed confused as to what exactly they were doing there and some began observing and taking notes as soon as we got in. A woman next to me was interested in what school we all went to, and we got into a discussion about the food she was eating. "How are you enjoying your lunch?" I asked. She responded by smiling and saying that her chilli was delicious. We got into further discussion on why exactly she was eating at Wendy's as opposed to other restaurants or cooking. She said that Wendy's was so close to her job that it was just so easy. She also said that cooking would be cheaper, but with cooking comes cleaning, and so eating out was just so much more convenient. She also said that the quality of the food at Wendy's on 14th street was better than the quality of the food at Wendy's on 125th street. This brought me to think about ideas of accessibility and convenience- especially when we headed two blocks over to the local farmers market.

Stepping into the somewhat chaotic market, we completely lost track of each other, and so made a plan to return to the school at the same time, but on our own. Having experience observing food and where it comes from as a result of my time spent working on an urban farm in the lower ninth ward, New Orleans, I decided to observe what was going on in the farmers market more generally rather than speaking to individual vendors. I was struck by how crowded and bustling this farmers market was. I began to reflect on my experiences with the Sunday's farmers market at Our School at Blair Grocery(OSBG) in New Orleans. In Union Square, people were lined up to buy food at each of stands. Back in the lower ninth ward however, we were lucky if we got more than 10 customers on any given Sunday.

I thought about the racial make up of the customers who shopped at the Union Square and OSBG farmers markets compared to the customers who ate at Wendy's. One thing that the two farmers markets had in common was that most of the customers purchasing food were white, whereas most of the customers purchasing food at Wendy's were people of color, and then I reflected on why that was.

Some things that I look at when I purchase food is health, cost and deliciousness. So I haven't bought food from a fast food restaurant like Wendy's in a really long time, and I refuse to support them. But at the same time, it can be too costly to buy food from farmers markets all the time, but its what I prefer.

Homework # 2 for Normal is Weird

Each paragraph I wrote focused on three different aspects I found important.

Ideas of Food:

When the word food shows up and into my mind, different words and ideas spring up along with it as if each word has consequence. I begin to think about the ideas of accessibility and convenience. Then ideas about health come up. I think about how the rates of children of color with diabetes are increasing every year. And then I think about communities. I think about my neighborhood, in Washington Heights, and then I think about a friend’s neighborhood, on the ‘upper west side’. And then I think about a neighborhood like the Lower ninth ward- which has only four available food related businesses- a taco cart, Cajun Joes (seafood take out), Magnolia (Bodega), and a Save A lot (supermarket). So, excuse my language, but when I think about the word food, a lot of fucked up issues come into place.

Food Priorities:

As I become a more conscious consumer, I begin to question the food that I used to enjoy eating. Which explains why I no longer eat meat… But at the same time, eating healthy can be expensive! So when I have money, I tend to look for food that’s cheap, but on the healthier side of the spectrum. I also make my own lunches everyday now, so I’m able to eat healthy and not pay at all.

Home:

I used to live with six people in my house, and now its just three of us: My dad, step mom and I. Now that its less of us, I take care of myself more often than I did before. Since my dad works a lot, I like to cook for him so that he can relax when he gets home, even though my dad LOVES to cook. Whenever I cook, I have to cook what’s in the fridge, because I don’t have money to go to the store. So I often cook pasta or rice and beans, or stir fried vegetables. We never buy take out food services. The few times that I have, my dad gets really angry with me. Plus, it’s a waste of my money. My family often eats together, and we always give thanks before every meal. And the cleaning rules that are put in place is that if you didn’t cook, you clean- so washing dishes is always my job.