NOTE! For those of you who read my blog as a genuine resource, i.e. not my English teacher, be warned. This post is completely unrelated to animated movies. I have been required to do an English assignment here, but hopefully I’ll have a new movie ready in a week or two. (I seriously doubt that there are any of you out there anyway, but this is just to make sure.)
Now, getting on with business. In my English class at school, we have recently begun a unit about food. To kick off the unit, we were asked to keep a journal of our meals for a week. Here is my report on what I found.
The first thing that stands out when looking through my food journal is realizing what creatures of habit we are at my house. Almost every morning without fail, I have a bowl of cold cereal in milk for my breakfast, Raisin Bran if possible. On school days, my typical lunch consists of:
-a small sandwich, either deli meat or PB&J
-a snacky, grain-related food such as pretzels, crackers, or chips
-carrots, either sticks or baby
-at least one fruit item
-a granola bar
At dinner, we toss together a simple salad (lettuces, sunflower seeds, dressing, and something extra) about 80% of nights. Sometimes I resist, but it’s a habit of mine to have another bowl of cereal (albeit smaller) before bedtime.
Seeing this in my journal made me realize what food means to us; more often than not I simply eat what is given me or what I can find easily. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the different flavors that food has to offer—quite the opposite! I am pretty sensitive to the tastes and textures that different foods have. It’s just a bit of a wake-up call to realize just how much we rely on repetition, on having a norm.
Something else I noticed was a recurring affinity of making note in the journal what things were “healthy” and which things were not. These comments consisted of my explanations for the recurring Raisin Bran, produce-heavy lunches, and daily salads, among other things. I remember there was a word for it that someone in the other English class mentioned, but it’s eluding me right now.
I hadn’t before really thought of myself as a health nut. This journal forced me to recognize how health-conscious my family is. True, my mother recently took it upon herself to exercise more and eat more vegetables, resulting in an impressive weight loss that has been drawing attention from relatives whenever we have visits. The mentality clearly still lingers in our house, though I think it’s mostly a good thing.
I was also shocked to realize just how little I know about where our groceries come from. What store, what company? Most of the time I just let my family do the grocery shopping, just as most of the time I let them create dinner and feed me with it. This was probably the biggest wake-up call of this entire project. I am a very dependent creature, even for a high schooler. My mother has often bemoaned what will happen to me when I leave for college, but only now can I perceive the scope of her worry. If I keep waiting for nourishment to come to my mouth, what in the world will I do when I leave the house?
When I look back at all of this that I previously didn’t recognize, I have to say that this assignment, the food journal, was a very useful one. Thank you for opening my eyes enough that I could see myself.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I like the point you make about college. I think you're right that most people you're age are both creatures of habit and depend on their parents for their choices. They eat what they always eaten. They ate what their parents buy. And when they get to college, since they don't have any well formed notions about food, they just continue to eat whatever is there, but in the case of the college cafeteria, this may certainly not be in their best interests and there is no limit to how much they can eat.
Post a Comment