HW 4 - Your Families' Foodways

My father (and his side of the family)

My dad eats almost everything that he purchases at Trader Joe's. He absolutely refuses to waste food, not that that’s a bad thing but when he cooks dinner he will guilt my brother and I into eating what ever he has put on our plates. His guilt trick includes a lecture about how hundreds of children just like us don't have food to eat and go to sleep hungry; it doesn’t work on me anymore. Unfortunately my father is a horrible, horrible cook. He doesn't really cook with creativity and if my brother mentions that he liked the "chicken nuggets" then my father would make that for dinner ever single night. Similarly to how I was given peanut butter and jellies every day for lunch from kindergarten to 4th grade. I guess he thinks its easier to not get anyone else's opinion when it comes to dinner or school lunch, and when I attempt to cook dinner by my self he insist on "helping" which really means he takes over and controls aspects of the meal I am trying to cook I think the whole situation is about control for him.

My father’s food ways could be brought back to the fact that when I was younger he was a vegetarian. He stopped eating meat because he didn’t think it was well for his body, he was also against the curtly to animals. But since my father stopped being a vegetarian he has become very healthy he will only buy fresh and foods with limited preservatives in them. No microwaveable meals. No microwaves. No pop-tarts. Everything needs at least a 10 minute preparation. He rather pay a high price and get a better quality freshness, then a low price for a lot of chemicals.

My grandmother (his mother) is extremely cautious about what she puts into her body. She keeps a lot of unusually natural things in unlabeled jars in her fridge. I wouldn't eat them. She pays a lot of money for specific things like bread without wheat, and jams made naturally without refined sugars. She was born a raised in upstate New York where there are a lot of farms so I think that attributes to the fact that she insists on buying locally. Due to where she was nurtured she was more exposed to farm land and farmers and the work that they must do to make a single gallon of milk, this causes her to appreciate it more.

I think that buying locally is great if it is possible, a lot of times the grocer won’t specify where the meat or vegetables or dairy is actually from and people like me don’t have the will to take the extra step to find out. Personally I think my grandmother’s life style is a little extreme but if she is happy with it and comfortable then it works for her. Then again location really does make a big difference because if I lived up state and there were fresh ingredients being sold next door, down the road or in a stand on the side of the road then I would certainly buy them instead of grocery store products.