The effects of this have been astounding. A great example of this is Thailand, which has been a leader in the implementation of gastrodiplomacy. Their program was established in 2002, and within a decade, the number of Thai restaurants worldwide nearly doubled! (The number of Thai restaurants in the United States quadrupled!) That means significantly more people tried and liked Thai food, and thus, culinary tourism increased significantly.
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Check out the Institue of Kimchi's official website here
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Because food and culture are intextricably tied, hate sometimes manifests through comments on a place's food. This unfortunate phenomenon makes it even more important to be aware of food habits and understand that diets around the world vary, oftentimes due to geographic features and humans finding different food sources to meet their needs for survival. It's also imperative to understand that no cultural diets are superior or inferior to others.
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Common racial stereotypes in product marketing such as Frito Bandito or Land O' Lakes Butter
Colorado state Sen. Vicki Marble said, "When you look at life expectancy, there are problems in the black race. Sickle-cell anemia is something that comes up. Diabetes is something that's prevalent in the genetic makeup, and you just can't help it. Although I've got to say, I've never had better barbecue and better chicken and ate better in my life than when you go down South and you, I mean, I love it. Everybody loves it." |
This is an image of Frito Bandito who had an exaggerated Mexican accent and stole Frito chips from people. Thankfully, the character was discontinued in 1971.
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Domestically, the racism discussed above also affects widespread malnutrition and unfairly distributed opportunities for accessing healthy foods. The video below provides an insightful analysis of the domestic food distribution problems the United States faces today. Regina Bernard-Carreno discusses malnutrition in impoverished neighborhoods in Queens, and the food racism and elitism she faced when trying to equalize food opportunities.
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This video talks about food racism or the unfairness involved in fighting malnutrition in impovrished areas. This is kind of a long video. The first four minutes are filled mainly with background information, so the content after minute four most directly relates to domestic nutrition problems.
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This phenomenon is called food deserts, which are places with a lack of food stores or available healthy food.
The darkest areas represent the worst food deserts in the America.
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A lack of access to healthy foods can lead to asthma, obesity, and shortened life expectancies. In some neighborhoods in the United States, neither supermarkets nor restuarants, have healthy available food. Some food is even marketed to seem healthy that isn't.
The United States is one of the ten richest countries in the world, and 48.8 million people (about 15% of the population), including more than 16 million children, live in food insecure households.
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A few factors today exacerbate the already massive problem of global hunger.
Food prices around the globe are rising, and incomes haven't risen accordingly. This means less people than before have access to sufficient amounts of food.
Arable land is being used to grow cash crops. This is when periphery countries grow a single crop and export it to core countries. This leads to less land being used to grow crops for the inhabitants of the country, and thus decreases their access to food. (It increases the country's income from exports, but this doesn't typically benefit the average farmer or citizen.)
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The video on top sums up global food problems in a very effective and entertaining way. However, if you're looking for a shorter video, watch the one on the bottom.
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“The earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”
-Mahatma Gandhi |
The biggest problem concerning global hunger is food distribution. Core countries consume and have access to significantly more food than their periphery counterparts. In the fight against global, food distribution is probably the single greatest concern.
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Globally, dietary ignorance can affect people all over the world. Harris uses the example of the United States government shipping powdered milk all over the globe in an effort to fight global hunger.
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For more on this, click here. It links to the milk preferences page which also can be found on the home page.
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Learn more about edible vaccines here. Scientists often decide which edible vaccines to develop solely based on the food's biological properties. However, if the food's not commonly eaten or doesn't naturally grow there, they probably won't be as effective as a crop more typical of the region.
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The Green Revolution is another aspect of the modern world that requires knowledge about global eating habits. Especially now that scientists are exploring edible vaccines, understanding diets is vital to ensure the most effective foods are used that people in specific regions will eat. Furthermore, a basic knowledge of diets is also important in identifying hunger needs and developing feasible solutions for them.
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Having a general understanding of Mexican food helps give even more insight into Donald Trump's offensiveness. Ignorance about global food habits, given their prominent role in social and political issues, is almost synonymous with cultural ignorance. Knowing about food and culture is crucial in order to be a well-informed global citizen.
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Socially, new attitudes toward (and new findings about) health helped fuel this trend. When Americans realized the cholersterol and cardiovascular problems related to red meat, many turned to chicken for their protein instead. We know this is probably an accurate assumption because a similar meat source shift happened recently, when women starting working, and families started eating hamburgers. The social conditions are different, but the basic idea is almost identical.
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Many nutritionists and doctors in the United States echo Chick-Fil-A's slogan.
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Unfortunately, mass chicken production comes with a cost. This is an image of a debeaked chick.
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Second, chicken males and females are extremely difficult to tell apart, so they bred and genetically modified male chickens to have longer wings. Now the sexes are much easier to identify. Third, the emergence of factory-style feedlots (essentially, the mechanization of farming facilites) helped chickens gain weight faster and facilitated mass production, which lowered chicken prices so that they were more affordable. This is very similar to how technology (namely feedlots and railroads) made beef production more efficient.
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This is an image of a coffee farm in Jinotega, Nicaragua.
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What if desertification in the Sahara renders lands previously used for agriculture unusable? Many people (especially given the high percentage of subsistence farmers in the region) would struggle to find food and might lack the funds to buy food from other communities. If Nicaragua’s climate or precipitation levels changed, coffee might not grow as easily, and a huge source of the country’s income would diminish. The loss of biodiversity also, very directly, affects nomadic communities who rely on specific vegetation and animals for food.
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