48 Hour Diary : Lunch 2

Christopher R                                                                                                                                                                  9/30/10

                For lunch the next day on Thursday, September 30, 2010 I went to lunch at a Wendy’s. The big idea on deciding this was which had a better dollar menu, McDonalds or Wendy’s. Of course Wendy’s has the 5 piece nuggets for 99 cents so that put it over the top. I also am strongly opposed to McDonalds because when I was in the 5^th grade I had to watch Super Size Me as part of a project but Wendy’s isn’t much better. I only continue to not eat McDonalds because I haven’t in over 6 years and that is a record I don’t want to break. So at the Wendy’s I usually try to get as many things on the dollar menu as I can without going over the amount of money I have to spend. It’s hard to see but I have a 5 piece Chicken Nuggets, a Crispy Chicken Sandwich and a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger with fries. This surprisingly didn’t fill me up and it only cost me a little over six dollars for four items of food. Nothing to drink and wash it down just the Wendy’s on the plate. While eating the Chicken Nuggets I realized that I was happy I ordered all of the other food because to me it tastes really good and that is the first thing I look for when I think about food. While I was at the Wendy’s however I saw that the 10 Chicken Nuggets piece with the fries and soda was 500-1500 calories. I was wondering how something can be such a larger range. If you are trying to count the calories then you just have to guess how much you’re getting?  It might have to do with the size fries and soda you get but that is very unclear because the fries are only suppose to come in one size and so is the soda. I also noticed while leaving there was no farmers market anywhere in fact there was a Pizza hut, Burger king, White Castle, McDonalds, Charly’s, and 2 Bros. All in a 5 block radius but I couldn’t even remember where the closest farmers market would be. The Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger tasted the best and it was all under 6.50. I thought it was a great choice of food financially and in terms of taste but I did feel sluggish after and I was wondering how this meal would be different for my mom who would probably have something just as “unhealthy” but the service would have been different and she would also know where her food came from whereas I’m eating “NEVER FROZEN” meat.

48 Hour Diary : Dinner

Christopher R                                                                                                                                                                  9/30/10

                For dinner I had Froot Loops. Two bowls of Froot Loops to be exactly. There was nothing cooked in my house and it was around 9pm when my mother came home and up to that point I was still really full from eating the four slices of pizza earlier. The only thing in my house that could be made on short notice with no mess and no money need was Froot Loops. After eating the Froot Loops I was actually very satisfied because it had an amazing taste. Froot Loops are my favorite cereal and I could probably eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner and the cold milk after the cereal was a good way to watch it down. I had to eat two bowls of cereal because if I eat small portions for dinner I get very hungry around midnight so it’s something I’ve learned about myself over the years and been able to fix. The other option I had was macaroni and cheese, with steak and broccoli but  up  to 9pm I wasn’t really hungry and even at 9pm I wasn’t hungry but not eating anything would have also had me up in the middle of the night looking for something to eat. This was probably the first time I’ve every substituted dinner for cereal but for something that is so simple to make it is probably the best decision in terms of taste. I’ve noticed when I think about food I only think about what is good to me. I can eat my favorite foods for days without caring that it’s the same thing over and over again. This connects back to my food ways because now there are many options of things to eat when no one cooks but when my mother was younger someone would always cook so there would never been any problem of worrying about what would happen if there wasn’t any food prepared. I think that if food was already made despite how full I was because macaroni is my favorite food I would have eaten that. I guess it goes to show how much I will do for food and I prefer food that is given to me or prepared for me and quick. If the food is not prepared I will just wait and take the option of food that I know will be prepared quickly.

48 Hour Diary : Lunch

Christopher R                                                                                                                                                                  9/30/10

                For lunch on Wednesday September 29, 2010 I went to a one dollar pizza place around the corner from school. The pizza was only one dollar so I pooled together money with Kevin Wagner and we bought one pizza pie and split it so that we would both have four slices of pizza. When looking around I noticed the place didn’t have a menu so there were no calories numbers next to the food because the only thing sold was plain cheese pizza. Many people were in the pizza place because it was so inexpensive. Looking left and right you could see dollars flying everywhere. NO ONE WANTED JUST ONE SLICE. That was something else I noticed. Most people don’t get full off one slice of pizza but at certain places pizzas are three dollars or maybe more. That keeps people from buying more than one but everyone that came in got two slices or more. I wanted four slices of pizza because last time I was there I ate two slices with the original order. Then I went back for another and another after that meaning I had four slices. So when I went back the next day I thought I should just get it all at the same time because it was quick. After the first slice of pizza I wanted another, and conveniently I didn’t have to go back and wait on the line of people out the door. After the second slice I was almost full but I was probably able to push out another slice so I went for the 3^rd slice. After this I was full but I didn’t want the money to go to waste so I decided to eat the last piece anyway. While I was eating I noticed all of the grease on the pizza and I blotted it with a napkin knowing that would take away some of the fat. After eating I was really tired and I felt really bloated. I was also really thirsty so after that I split an Arizona Mango flavored with Kevin Wagner to wash it down. Because the pizza was so cheap is what made me want to go there to eat. I also knew that after waiting around in front of school for ten minutes I had to get something quick and that place produces pizzas nonstop it seemed more like factory. After eating that I felt like I did when I ate the ten white castle burgers and I didn’t need that much to be full but it was a food adventure to test the limits of how far I could push myself. Food to me is an adventure. I try almost anything once and because of that is why I try to challenge myself to going to the limit. It also made sense why the food was only 1 dollar because the pizza didn't have much cheese so it seemed like a bargain but usually quality is better then quantity and the quality of the food wasn't that good however the quantity solved the problem of me being hungry. I wonder what would happen to the pizza sales and quality if it was only 50 cents and how many I would get? I say 6.

Homework Post 5

    A discourse is a discussion that people have about many different topics and the dominant discourse is the idea on these discussions that are mostly talked about and published as well as in the media. It can change depending on the culture that someone belongs to. There are dominant discourses in everyday topics and the biggest topic is what to eat and what not to eat. Doctors have opinions, nutritionist, local people and everyone who has to eat. The people who get their idea talked about in these situations are people who are considered experts. For food this would be doctors because people trust the doctors judgment seeing as the doctor is suppose to the most well informed about health. Everyone wants to eat healthy so they can continue to live and they can continue to live life without many problems. The doctors and nutritionist are suppose to be the ones who take care of finding out what is good for a human to eat and what isn’t. If your friend were to tell you that the pizza they ate made them feel a lot better than any other pizza they ever ate. This pizza was proven to be good for you and that pizza had 50 calories and 0 Trans fat. You might be skeptical of these proclaimed facts because your friend probably didn’t go to school to study the human body. However if it was displayed everywhere that pizza is better than salad because 10 Harvard professors did studies on it then people would trust their judgment.

 The dominant discourse that is brought up over and over again when talking about food is the best way to eat healthy. This includes staying under 2,000 calories to make sure that no weight is gained and another idea is sticking to the food chain and following it completely to know how many servings of a particular kind of food should be consumed. Most people think that you are considered healthy when you have a wider variety of foods to eat but according to the people who are normally quoted in newspapers and articles which are again usually doctors, organic vegetables make a big difference. The biggest idea about eating healthy is how many servings of vegetables a person eats per day and where this food comes from.  

                The topic that is generally discussed in the dominant food discourse is not only what the food is but how the food is prepared. What seems to be the ideal form of eating is organic food grown from a garden or grown in a farm because when vegetables are grown they are also sprayed with pesticides so the food doesn’t get destroyed by any pest. Pesticides however are chemicals that shouldn’t always be consumed by humans. Another thing that is also discussed widely is the need for Americans to consume more vegetables. In the New York Times article Told to Eat It’s Vegetables, American Orders French Fries only twenty three percent of meals include vegetables whereas the amount of vegetables that are supposed to be consumed per day are nine servings. The article also states, “The number of dinners prepared at home that included a salad was 17 percent; in 1994, it was 22 percent”… “At restaurants, salads ordered as a main course at either lunch or dinner dropped by half since 1989, to a mere 5 percent (Severson 3).” The quote shows evidence that people are consuming less vegetables because it is seen as a pain and difficult to make. The number has dropped since 1994 even though more stories are coming out about the idea of healthy food and even though more books are being published about the way that food can help a person’s body.

 The fact that many people see eating fruits and vegetables as a challenge is the biggest problem among trying to get people to eat healthier. Vegetables that are organic are either very expensive or hard to find and usually not in poorer neighborhoods because they can’t be afforded however this is where they should be because people in poorer neighborhoods don’t eat well. Vegetables are also seen as a challenge because they are harder to cook them something you can throw on a grill and wait. Making vegetables that taste good is seen to be one of the bigger blockades stopping people from eating healthy. The solution that is being pushed toward is making these foods less expensive. If people see that these are less expensive they might get ordered more at restaurants and might be bought more often to be cooked at home.

                Food is now seen as a medicine and a poison. Many people such as Dr. Maring who is a gynecologist said in reference to his fruits and vegetables, “Since it’s mine, I made the rules — all organic.” In the article Doctors Orders: Eat Well to Be Well doctors are referenced to eat food that are not good for them because it is usually junk food and even though doctors know a lot about the kinds of foods that should be consumed they still follow the dominant discourse of food that is “normal” to eat. Even people without availability because of money or lack of organic food markets agree that the idea of healthy  are fruits and vegetables and this is shown in the article Fresh Vegetables Where Fast Food Reigns however these aren’t the people that are mentioned in most articles. Even though many of the people that don’t eat healthy have less money than people who do eat healthy, the voices of these people are not heard. This is most likely because people would not like to hear about what someone who isn’t considered healthy eats, everyone is turning to doctors to find out what should be consumed. In fact the dominant discourses come from the doctors because people believe what they say seeing as they went to school to study about these topics.

Normal Is Weird #4

Christopher R                                                                                                                                                    9/26/10

                The food my mother ate was whatever her mother made for her and her sisters to eat. If my grandmother didn’t cook for whatever reason there would just be a group of really hungry children. However my grandmother cooked all the time. She would wake up early to make biscuits, bacon, sausages, eggs, grits and anything else available to help feed the family of eleven. Food was always being cooked when my grandmother was home and the Sunday meals were the largest. Usually you would see some kind of pork, rice, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, turkey, chicken, and cabbage. Eating this kind of meal is something my mother became use to and it was considered normal for her to eat like this because this is how everyone in my family cooked. Then for desserts there would be pie, and this would happen every weekend without fail. If my mother didn’t want any of that food she just would have to go without eating. Making a statement such as, “Well maybe next Sunday we can try something different, maybe we could eat spaghetti or try to change it up” just wouldn’t be given any attention because it was a routine. A routine that would not be broken and trying to raise a family of eleven people isn’t expensive so knowing that my grandmother could full up eleven people at an affordable cost is also something that couldn’t be disputed.

                This was also the food that my grandmother was bought up eating and she learned how to prepare these certain foods from her mom. These food routines were what my grandmother learned to cook making it easier for her to feed my mother and her sisters. At that point in time there were a lot less books that were talking about what was considered healthy and new inexpensive ways to make new foods. All that was thought about food to my mom was what she was going to eat and when she was going to eat it. There was no say in it for her because she lived in a suburb were the closest fast food place was 10 miles away and there were not very many fast food places to begin with. Her food was generally based upon what was consumed by her mother and that’s what she learned to cook so a lot of that is what I eat now.

                My food ways however are still different from my mom because there are many more options I can choose from. At lunch there are many places you can go and money isn’t usually a problem because all fast food restaurants are always trying to prove they have the cheapest meal. For example while I type this I just saw an Applebees commercial that was advertising a “20 dollar dinner for two”. Also living in the city I can be exposed to all kinds of food. In Chinatown I can pick up more traditional Chinese food. Or you can go to other places that have foods from other nationalities. Compared to my mother who only got to eat the foods that her mother made I get to try a variety of foods because it is more accessible and the time and courses the foods are served in are less routine. Compared to my grandmother who had to cook every night my mother now usually gives me fast food when she comes home because it’s the inexpensive quick food variety in which she couldn’t get. This meaning my mother doesn’t have to cook however between her and my father she is the one that cooks because she was taught how to cook all the things my grandmother cooked. She also wakes early every now and then to prepare breakfast but it’s in a smaller quantity because this is a family of 2. And even though my mother doesn’t cook everyday she does make a meal every Sunday. Her and my aunts and uncles all do this because it’s a tradition that they’ve gotten so use to and enjoyed that they passed it down.

                With the family of 2 it’s easier to have different foods because only two people have to agree upon it instead of 11 and there can be a decision made. The picture that I posted of my meal is chicken and waffles because that is something that I get from outside. It also has chicken which is something my family eats a lot of and it’s also something that I enjoy.  It’s also something that’s really easy to find where I live and there are a lot of people who live where I live that eat this food. My ideas about food ways is you eat whatever your parents eat. When you’re younger and can barely speak your parents decide what you’re going to eat. They usually get this from your parents. Then when your five and can speak but don’t have a say in what you eat only what you like your parents continue to give you food they like so they think you’ll like this too. In other cases your parents feed you certain foods so many times it just becomes something that you get use to eating. In the case of my mother even though she didn’t like some of the foods she was feed she had to eat it because if not she wouldn’t eat and sometimes she learned to like the foods she ate. Then these foods get passed down, those get passed down but each time it changes a little. Like people who grew up eating meat (because of their parents) then turn in vegetarians the new found vegetarians might influence their kids to become vegetarians. So even though in some cases maybe even twenty percent of cases  when the kids defer away from the parents eating habits they influence THEIR kids to the eating habits they have and its passed on and changed a little bit but the majority is passed on.

Chicken and Waffles

Open Fridge

Homework Post 3: Fast food vs. Farmers Market

Christopher R

The differences between a Farmers Market and a well known fast food place, for starters ask any pedestrian in the neighborhood where you can pick up the best Chinese food, or the best burgers and you’ll be there in ten minutes. Ask any pedestrian walking around in the same neighborhood where the farmers market is and you’ll probably get a confused look or an unsure answer if an answer at all. The reason behind this is if you want to know where the local Wendy’s is you can see it on Google maps, go on the website. Get an idea from the bottom of the commercial, look at the sign that’s probably in many subway stations or walk around until you see the red awning. The main reason that people do not eat foods from farmers markets more often are because they aren’t advertised. As a matter of fact if you look on the television that is displayed in the Wendy’s on 14^th street there are advertisements for the Wendy’s. While standing in the Wendy’s ideas are being crammed in your head to shop at Wendy’s because they have the best burgers that are “never frozen”. Or they have the freshest vegetables out of the other fast food chain restaurants. Even if someone did want to go the farmers market it would be a lot easier to Google the nearest grocery store or the closest fast food place. The idea of going to a farmers market is also not something many people think about a lot because most people don’t live by a farmers market so don’t know what they offer. However when people think about the Wendy’s that is right next door they can think about what they want, how much it cost and how long it will take.

There was a couple located in the Wendy’s who were interviewed by Andy and Eloise were asked what kinds of things makes them come to Wendy’s and the eating habits that they have. When they were asked why they choose to come to Wendy’s opposed to all of the other eating choices in the city they respond, “Well it’s cheaper and I know what I’m going to get when I come here”. This seems like something most people think self consciously when choosing foods. Most of the time people do not have time to go to a restaurant that may have fresh food that tastes good. It’s more difficult to obtain food that you might find a farmers market because not only are there a small quantity of them but the places which are more well known and local don’t use ingredients from a farmers market. The couple was also asked how healthy do they think they eat normally on a scale from one to ten and the answer was a five. I thought to myself that I would probably also give myself a five but when I looked at their stature they were heftier then the average person. I looked around at what might make someone want to come into a Wendy’s even though there are consistently on the news with updates about how the food is cooked in fast food places. The stories usually are reporting bad news, for example the Kentucky Fried Chicken on 14^th street a block away from the Wendy’s was once invaded by rats and it became a tourist attraction. KFC also was reported to abuse the chickens they cook while they are in the slaughterhouse and the chicken they were distributing chickens that were in poor sanitation slaughterhouses. The Wendy’s had many pictures of food they sell; however this was not the way they sold it. Looking around you would see a cheeseburger with sesame seed buns, whole lettuce, fresh looking onions serviced on a plate. The fries would all look crisp and none over or undercooked. However when you get this food you see a piece of meat sandwiched between two small buns and hard over cooked fries. Because of these pictures some people think they are getting top quality for a low price and when they see the advertisements about the never frozen meat they see this as healthy food at a cheap price. My classmate Ruben also tried to interview a Wendy’s worker asking why she choose to work at Wendy’s oppose to any other place and she just walked away giving off the impression she didn’t really have a reason. It wasn’t because they had a great business or good food but just because it was an easy job to get.

While leaving the Wendy’s and listening to the guy near the Wendy’s with a stack full of 1 dollar bills for 10 Wendy Frosties (Milk Shake) yell out, “There’s no better deal than this, who else can give you this much bang for one buck.” I thought to myself if he has even 10 dollars in his hand although it looks like more that’s 100 Frosties consumed within most likely less than 50 people meaning they continue to sell and because they continue to sell that’s more advertising and it goes around in a circle. The Farmers Market however was completely different from the Wendy’s. The Wendy’s had a place for seating after the consumers had gotten the food. The Farmers Market on the other hand didn’t have this because they weren’t selling meals. The woman from the Wendy’s said she liked her food fast and cheap but all I could see at the Farmers market was food that could be used to make a meal. It was pretty expensive but it all looked fresh and you could make the same meals from the Farmers Market ingredients that you get at a fast food place. The Farmers market only advertisements were the green tents that signaled there was another booth under the tent. I went to a woman who looked like she was cooking something and she told me she was doing, “Teaching people how to store salsa in containers. This way you don’t need to put it in the refrigerator and you can have it up to a year. Unlike anything you get in the normal store”. So I asked, “How much would this cost?” She responded, “I’m not selling any kind of special container there’s a book that teaches you how to do what I’m doing." So this isn’t any kind of food the lady is selling but she is teaching you something that could help you in the long run. However when people think about going to lunch, they don’t want to eat natural raw tomatoes. Like the lady in Wendy’s said, people want the food quick and to have good taste but not always about where the food comes from. In fact how many times do people order something completely based on where it comes from.

The Farmers market also will have a tough time selling because not only are they expensive as seeing usually the tents are owned by people who have to pay a lot to get the supplies, but fast food places are all marketing themselves as healthy. No one who want to get lettuce that they know is healthier, has been preserved properly and taste good  for 4.00 dollars when they could get what they is the same thing along with the burger around it and fries for 2.00. Its less likely someone will buy different kinds of pastas for 10.00 that are good tasting and healthy for you when the Olive Garden will give you as much pasta as you can possibly consume for the same price. Not only is it marketed cheaper in the food chains but it is also prepared for you. This takes out the inconvenience that people see when the walk through a Farmers market and this is because of the difference in marketing. Wendy’s has: “cheap, already prepared, fast, local, healthy food”. Whereas people see the Farmers market as, “expensive, healthy, not prepared/hard to make, out of the way food”. People don’t usually think about where the food comes from unless you tell them.

The people in the Wendy’s did not see food to be a sacred thing because you can get it from so many places that it doesn’t really matter. There are so many types of food and the big idea people have about food is the taste. However I think the people that buy from the Farmers market may seem food as sacred because even though it is expensive and usually out of the way, if you take the time to buy from a place where the employees are well educated about the food they are selling. These workers can explain in depth about how this food was good and worth eating. I feel if you shop your food is sacred to you and you care a lot about what goes into your body instead of settling for the kinds of food you can get on every street corner.

HW 2: Food

Christopher R.                                                                                                      9/20/10   

         Food can define the way a person lives. Some people are the more focused on eating foods that have been classified as health or low calorie foods and other people are look at food as something that is to satisfy a persons hunger.  I think a persons eating habits comes from what is available and what is given to them at a young age. People know what they around surrounded by and depending on the types of foods fed to you throughout your childhood and what you grow up eating. Most of that is from what is near in your neighborhood. If you live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of fast food places and not many gourmet grocery stores the choice is no longer the consumers. Most people like things to be at the convenience of their home which is why Fresh Direct, has become so popular and the good is marketed to be fresh and healthy. The problem with Fresh Direct is it can become expensive because you have to pay for the “fresh” food and the shipping and handling. Making the market that supposes to be a convenience more of an inconvenience. Making fast food something a majority of people turn to because there are so many of them and the price is surprisingly low for a lot of product.

            Those are the things that go through a person’s head when they are deciding what to eat. Not the calories or the contents and ingredients of the product they have but how to urgently fill the need they have to eat. Personally when I think about what I am going to eat I only think about the taste. In fact I see eating as some sort of adventure, which is a way that many people see food. Even though the food you eat or don’t eat could be the difference in how you physically are in the future or any kind of repercussions the food you eat may have. About a week ago in the ever so hard decision on where to get food the choice came between McDonalds and Wendy’s. The two are almost one in the same except one of the choices has square patties and the other has the traditional circular ones. In fact there were two different Wendy’s locations and two different McDonalds locations. The final choice was White Castle, which was an out of the blue choice but the victor in the debate. Now the choice was what to eat. With burgers the size of bottle caps two burgers probably couldn’t fill anyone up. So with the help of three people we pulled together twenty-one dollars and bought a Crave Case. Thirty tiny bite sized burgers. Now this means ten for the each of us. We all knew that one burger had 170 calories meaning we would be eating at least 1,700 calories in one meal but the only thing that crossed my mind was how eating all those burgers would put me up there with the guy from the Man vs. Food and I would be my own personal hero. This is something that goes through a lot of peoples minds. However you always hear something is good for you and something is bad for you but when the so called bad food is so easy to get in large amounts only taste matters. For example in China the fast food restaurant total was over 500,000 and second was America with 100,000. Geographically America is larger then China however China has 5 times the amount of fast food chains but only 3 times the amount of people.
           Food is also is the way that people look at themselves. Thats where we get the kind of girls that look in the mirror and see themselves as fat when they weigh 85 pounds. Or the three year old babies on Maury who weigh 90 pounds because feeding them is much easier to get them to stop crying then playing with them. Theres even the famous line, "you are what you eat" and that has now been transformed to, "eat this and you might look like this, eat this and you will be health". Depending on how a person wants to look can determine how they eat. Like when actors want to get fatter or thinner they go on diets or binge eat. There are so many diets now everyone is trying to see which one fits them most for the certain body type they want. Food is the new way of marketing many things because everyone has to eat so food that could remove pimples, or even a food that was promised to make you grow is becoming more common then "healthy" food or "tasty" food.
              My ideal meal would be a meal with a group of my closest friends while eating cheeseburgers and fries. Preferably the greasiest cheeseburgers with probably 8 pounds of beef, 2 pounds of bacon and 5 pounds of fries. Watching the boondocks would be required and we would have to be serviced.