Food, Self, and Society

I enjoyed our discussion about food security because it reacquainted me with the fact that food availability is strongly related to culture. In the article about the Korean military brides I was astounded to hear about the degree of torture that these women experienced on account of a scarcity of Korean food in the United States. While, I do remember my mother conveying to me her difficulty in stomaching American poultry and meats for the first three years, what the Korean women, who arrived during the 1950s and 1960s, experienced pales in comparison. Their scenarios got me thinking about how the issue of cultural imperialism, or the attitude that there is a right way to eat, is still prevalent in Western practices. I’ve alluded to the idea of a structured way to eat in the previous post about food trays in school cafeterias, but it is also prevalent in food aid and distribution. Much of the way the donators direct their thoughts of food distribution to countries of need and situations of emergency is echoed in the way that the United Nations defines food security, which is a household that has a high chance of going hungry. Essentially, they address the issue of hunger as providing any food to a group of people, who may or may not be culturally experienced in eating and digesting the food. An example of this is the practice of including powdered milk in food rations to the Korean people during the Korean War. While, well-intentioned it is important to point out that dairy is not an aspect of the Korean diet, so often times they would consume it and become sick or else not use it. After this foresight it is frustrating to see that food aid still issues macaroni and cheese, which is an American construct, to billions of suffering people around the world who eat the alien food out of necessity. I’m sure that all of this treatment has carved out a place of resentment towards Westerners for many of these people.