Food is Culture

Often times, diet culture or the world around us likes to distill food down into it's nutrients. While nutrients and thus the nutrition of food is important, it is also helpful to consider how we use food and why.

Think about special occasions in life - birthday parties, weddings, funerals, college graduation parties, bar/bat mitzvahs, etc. - all of these things are CENTERED around the food involved because food connects us!

Food creates a shared experience.

Food fosters traditions.

Food creates a connection to your culture and your heritage.

Food allows us to access our feelings.

All of this being said, food is not the vessel through which we can resolve feelings or necessarily express feelings solely, but it can be a tool. One example that I always like to use is from the classic American masterpiece film, Legally Blonde. Elle Woods has been unfairly dumped by her overrated boyfriend, Warner, and she finds comfort and solace in a box of chocolates (which she laters rightfully throws in his douchey face). Food can be used as a way to foster connection with people (or their faces) or allow us to move through our feelings. This sort of Rom-Com culture often uses food in this way - we often see a breakup scene followed up with a pint of ice cream or another "comfort" food being consumed as a way of coping. Shared experiences over food allow us to make positive connections with food.

Another way that food connects us with each other is in the act of making it. Being in the kitchen with your grandmother and learning how to create a dish that is special to your heritage or to your family is a unique and beautiful experience. Making pasta from scratch or learning how to make authentic tortillas from fosters mutuality with others. These experiences allow us to connect to not only our family, but to others around us. Shared moments with food allow us to deepen our human connections and bring people together in a way that very few things can.