The Culture of Food in America Essay - 2672 Words

The Culture of Food in America ANT 101 Abstract Food is an essential part of any culture and it serves to show the diversity and unique aspects of different cultural beliefs. In the United States, there are people from diverse cultural groups and many different cultures. These groups possess unique culinary cultures, which add to diversity. This paper explores the different cultural groups present in the United States and their traditional foods. These cultures enable us to understand the concept of cultural diversity. The paper also explores divergence towards the â€Å"fast food† culture and its effects of the health of Americans. Two journal articles are used to further†¦show more content†¦Different cultures of Hispanic origin consume different types of beans with Southern Mexicans, Cubans, Venezuelans, and Central Americans using black beans while Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Northern Mexicans use pinta beans or pinto. Hispanic Caribbean, Central, and South Americans prefer red kidney beans, whil e Brazilians and Venezuelans use garbanzo or chickpeas (Devine et. al., 2002). Native Americans Native Americans consume traditional American dishes such as crab cakes, beef barbecue, pizza, and slow cooked pork. However, these diets emerged after being introduced by Europeans (Wellman Friedberg, 2002). Before they came into contact with Europeans, they ate Indian corn, squash, pumpkins, wild rice, sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, papayas, avocadoes, and peanuts (Wellman Friedberg, 2002). General Eating Habits of the American Population Although the American population has different culinary tastes, there is a convergence towards the culture of fast foods at present in the U.S. Many Americans have adopted an eating culture that involves consumption of fast foods in large quantities. This has been seen as the American dietary culture and has been embraced by most cultural groups. For instance, $6 billion was spent on fast foods in 1970, but this figure increased to $110 billion by 2000 (Wellman Friedberg, 2002). Most of these fast foods are junk foods and they include pizza, french fries, candy, hamburgers, hot dogs andShow MoreRelatedFood Culture Between Vietnam and America729 Words   |  3 PagesFinal Draft Food Culture in Vietnam and America When we discuss about the differences between Vietnamese and America culture, we can think of many things such as History, Style of Music, Arts, Religion, Language, etc. And, I will tell you some differences and similarities in eating culture of the two countries. Even though they both have things in common such as family’s dinner, tea and coffee for morning, three meals a day or small snacks between main meals. 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