Industrial Food Diary
The first day of my food diary was pretty simple to create because I simply ate like I normally do and recorded it, but it was hard trying not to avoid eating certain foods because I knew they were processed. Although I ate as I normally would, I was more observant when eating this time around, I was reading food labels and ingredients that the dining hall provides as well as the boxes and packages from the snack and fruit cup I ate. When Warner stated, “processed food is even more ubiquitous than we think it is, in part because many products are designed to look as if they’re not really processed at all,” I realized that this very statement explains how I was so easily manipulated into thinking that only snacks and non-100% fruit were processed foods (Warner xvii). I was mind blown by how many foods that I eat often, consists of powders and different food additives instead of the actual vitamins and forms of nutrients they so strongly promote and advertise. What disturbed me the most regarding processed foods was the section about cheese, or “cheese product”, where Warner tells, “processed cheese also has more sodium, which Americans are vastly overconsuming,” and this statement opened my eyes because I am a cheese-lover, in fact, I add cheese to everything from sandwiches and salads to spaghetti and baked potatoes (Warner 46).
After reading further into Pandora’s Lunchbox, it was hard when it came time for the second day of my food diary because I had to be more mindful of what I was eating, yet still feed myself with foods that would fill me. The first change that I made with my altered diet was figuring out what snacks are unprocessed because before and/or in between class is when I eat some type of snack. I reviewed Warner’s blog, 100 Days of Real Food, which helped me find healthier snacks like dried fruit, nuts and popcorn instead of my original muffins, granola bar and/or fruit cup. As for my real meals, I ate a good breakfast, it may not have followed the entire “real food” definition but I made an attempt. For dinner, I told my mom about the assignment and asked her to make as healthy of a meal as possible and offered my help since I was the one making requests. My mom has always been the one to prepare and cook all meals, and since a kid I’ve grown fond of helping her out whenever she’d allow it. Her response to me asking her to cook a dinner without fried food or ordering takeout, as well as cooperation reminded me of a paragraph in How to be Your Own Italian Grandmother where Fagan talked about her mother cooking and how she’d be in the kitchen with her as a helper and taste taster when needed (Fagan 88). Eliminating processed food from my diet wasn’t as hard as I assumed, but it did bring challenge and cause me to open up to other snacks and including different things in my daily meals. Overall, each reading has helped me realize how easy it is to eat healthier, be more aware of what you’re eating and how to manage finances when purchasing food. I would much rather eat like my second day of the food diary in comparison to the first day where everything was to my liking and choice, instead of my health and well-being.
Day 1: Thursday, September 13, 2018
After reading further into Pandora’s Lunchbox, it was hard when it came time for the second day of my food diary because I had to be more mindful of what I was eating, yet still feed myself with foods that would fill me. The first change that I made with my altered diet was figuring out what snacks are unprocessed because before and/or in between class is when I eat some type of snack. I reviewed Warner’s blog, 100 Days of Real Food, which helped me find healthier snacks like dried fruit, nuts and popcorn instead of my original muffins, granola bar and/or fruit cup. As for my real meals, I ate a good breakfast, it may not have followed the entire “real food” definition but I made an attempt. For dinner, I told my mom about the assignment and asked her to make as healthy of a meal as possible and offered my help since I was the one making requests. My mom has always been the one to prepare and cook all meals, and since a kid I’ve grown fond of helping her out whenever she’d allow it. Her response to me asking her to cook a dinner without fried food or ordering takeout, as well as cooperation reminded me of a paragraph in How to be Your Own Italian Grandmother where Fagan talked about her mother cooking and how she’d be in the kitchen with her as a helper and taste taster when needed (Fagan 88). Eliminating processed food from my diet wasn’t as hard as I assumed, but it did bring challenge and cause me to open up to other snacks and including different things in my daily meals. Overall, each reading has helped me realize how easy it is to eat healthier, be more aware of what you’re eating and how to manage finances when purchasing food. I would much rather eat like my second day of the food diary in comparison to the first day where everything was to my liking and choice, instead of my health and well-being.
Day 1: Thursday, September 13, 2018
- One pack of Hostess mini chocolate chip muffins
- One mandarin oranges fruit cup
- One waffle
- One breakfast sandwich with egg, American cheese, bacon, sausage on an English muffin with maple cream cheese
- One small bowl of vanilla yogurt topped with granola
- Crispy chicken salad with cut up chicken tender pieces, cucumbers, boiled egg pieces, shredded cheese, croutons and lettuce topped with ranch dressing
- One piece of maple glazed salmon and white rice
- 6 bottles of water
- Omelette with American cheese, bacon, ham and sausage
- Hash browns
- Two pieces of wheat toast
- Two pancakes
- Popcorn
- Two grilled chicken legs
- Fresh corn and a baked potato
- A granny smith apple
- 7 bottles of water
Refrigerator Photograph
When completing this assignment, I did my best to go in blind to this person’s way of living as well as minimizing my judging ways. This is the refrigerator of one of my neighbors and because we don’t talk to them much or know much about them, they were a perfect fit. They are a family of three with a single mom and two sons living in the house. My first observation was that the family must eat a fair amount of takeout, but then it dawned on me that some people use these “to-go” like boxes to restore food so this could be no different than the other bowls stored in the fridge with food in them. I also noticed the three carton of eggs, two boxes of butter and half gallon of milk which came off as normal to be because my mom makes sure to keep all three of those as well as breakfast meats like sausage and bacon in our refrigerator. Although there is no picture, this family has a drawer at the bottom of their refrigerator that is specifically for produce, but the drawer had a rather strong stench due to the grapes, head of lettuce and asparagus that had went bad. I decided that indicated a form of higher class or income because of how much produce costs in comparison to other foods and I doubt that anyone would willingly waste it unless it was considered, “no big deal” because more produce could be bought to replace it. There are more drinks and condiments than there are actual food to eat, but I did take note that the family stored some leftovers in their fridge rather than storing them in the freezer to have longer like the tip mentioned in Chelsea Fagan’s “How to Be Your Own Italian Grandmother”. She also recommends never wasting your groceries, yet this family wasted a drawer filled with produce, but again, maybe they are financially capable of replacing it all.
I also used another article, “From ‘Junk Food’ to ‘Treats’” to help with critiquing this refrigerator and was able to consider other concepts and means of reasoning. In this article, Wei-ting Chen discusses similarities and differences between women of different cities with different resources and financial situations when it comes to feeding their children. More specifically, these women and interviewed and allowed to explain their routine of feeding their children as well as their reasoning for choosing certain foods and shopping at certain stores. She writes, “Instead of describing themselves as food insecure, mothers would say things like: ‘we are fine, you know, we make it work,’ or ‘we make do with what we have’” and this quote struck me not only as relatable but as familiar (Chen 166). There’s been plenty of times where our fridge hasn’t been filled with groceries, but there’s food in there and we are fed everyday no matter the time of the month because my mom used her resources and was always good with improvising. I applied this concept to this family and this allowed me to see that maybe they aren’t so much on the higher end of class and income, but maybe they’re towards the middle or even the end and are simply “making it work”. I respect any family that is capable of providing for their family and is doing their best to make ends meet whether they are of high income or low, families are a lot to take on and feeding a family is never cheap. Unless, however, you’re staring at dollar menu and do not care about the health consequences your family will be dealing with shortly.
I also used another article, “From ‘Junk Food’ to ‘Treats’” to help with critiquing this refrigerator and was able to consider other concepts and means of reasoning. In this article, Wei-ting Chen discusses similarities and differences between women of different cities with different resources and financial situations when it comes to feeding their children. More specifically, these women and interviewed and allowed to explain their routine of feeding their children as well as their reasoning for choosing certain foods and shopping at certain stores. She writes, “Instead of describing themselves as food insecure, mothers would say things like: ‘we are fine, you know, we make it work,’ or ‘we make do with what we have’” and this quote struck me not only as relatable but as familiar (Chen 166). There’s been plenty of times where our fridge hasn’t been filled with groceries, but there’s food in there and we are fed everyday no matter the time of the month because my mom used her resources and was always good with improvising. I applied this concept to this family and this allowed me to see that maybe they aren’t so much on the higher end of class and income, but maybe they’re towards the middle or even the end and are simply “making it work”. I respect any family that is capable of providing for their family and is doing their best to make ends meet whether they are of high income or low, families are a lot to take on and feeding a family is never cheap. Unless, however, you’re staring at dollar menu and do not care about the health consequences your family will be dealing with shortly.
McDonaldization Exercise
According to George Ritzer, “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world” is the definition of McDonaldization. Although I wasn’t fully aware of how our society has been McDonaldized, but after a few examples, I certainly understand. I started a live chat with a customer support attendant, Paul Micheal. Prior to the conversation, I was a bit nervous about what exactly to ask and unsure of what he’d respond saying. Luckily for me, he was rather friendly and answered each question honestly. When asking about movie and tv suggestions, he was giving general answers as far as where I could find specific movie categories. Finally, I thought to inquire about his opinion of Netflix outside of working for the company and he emphasized how much he’s loved it the past three years that he’s had it. What made communicating with him hard was the fact that I was supposed to ask him about Netflix without mentioning how it was for a class project regarding McDonaldization within our economies. To dig a little deeper, I asked, “why do you love Netflix?” and he simply replied, “its convenient. All I need is good data service or wi-fi and I can binge my favorite show whether I’m out and about or at home in bed. I used to think Netflix was sort of ridiculous because I grew up watching tv so it was an adjustment. Now Netflix has my loyalty over cable, I blame Netflix for not letting commercials interrupt my shows!” Paul’s explanation reminded me of the article “The Tyranny of Convenience” written by Tim Wu. Wu talks about the good and bad of convenience within our society. More specifically Wu states, “we are spoiled by immediacy and become annoyed by tasks that remain at the old level of effort and time” and this concept is similar to what Paul was explaining to me. He’d much rather watch his favorite shows on Netflix as opposed to watching it on tv because he grows impatient with commercials interrupting each episode. As a college student with such small amount of free time, I can agree with the idea of finding Netflix to be more satisfying when watching shows than watching them on tv.
All in all, I believe my requests were met when speaking with Paul, he did his best to answer my questions and give me information that made sense. His friendliness allowed me to ease up and feel more comfortable continuing the conversation as well as asking him more questions. As far as breaking codes of normal social interaction, there weren’t many broken but that’s because he was cooperative and not weirded out or resistant. On another note, I asked him about McDonaldization including his thoughts and opinions on the topic in general. Towards the end of Paul’s response, he said, “its almost like everyone wants to be the ‘McDonalds’ of their product. Their goal is to have as many sales and costumers shopping as those going to McDonalds.” I couldn’t help but admire him for his response because it was so well-said and I absolutely agree. Most companies are striving to be as great as McDonalds and as Ritzer says, “offers consumers, workers, and managers efficiency, calculability, predictability and control” because they know that following this method will keep their businesses booming.
All in all, I believe my requests were met when speaking with Paul, he did his best to answer my questions and give me information that made sense. His friendliness allowed me to ease up and feel more comfortable continuing the conversation as well as asking him more questions. As far as breaking codes of normal social interaction, there weren’t many broken but that’s because he was cooperative and not weirded out or resistant. On another note, I asked him about McDonaldization including his thoughts and opinions on the topic in general. Towards the end of Paul’s response, he said, “its almost like everyone wants to be the ‘McDonalds’ of their product. Their goal is to have as many sales and costumers shopping as those going to McDonalds.” I couldn’t help but admire him for his response because it was so well-said and I absolutely agree. Most companies are striving to be as great as McDonalds and as Ritzer says, “offers consumers, workers, and managers efficiency, calculability, predictability and control” because they know that following this method will keep their businesses booming.