Impact

"How does food play a part in our lives?"

"Beyond being a necessity to living, how do our food-related habits affect the world?"

The Global Cookbook intends to answer these questions and showcase how we can make positive impacts through our food consumption habits. First, we need to examine how food impacts our society.

1

With all of humanity’s variety of interests, lifestyles, and characters, there are very few common denominators between all people on earth. One of those few constants is food.

The production, use, and consumption of food is an integral part of the survival and development of the human species. Around 40 percent of the land surface on earth is currently used for agricultural purposes or farming. Even more surprisingly, 85 percent of the water resources on earth are used for agriculture. Agricultural technology is continually studied and newly modified by scientists in the field who seek to increase crop yield while using resources efficiently, and sustaining enough nutrition for consumers. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) routinely inspects the quality and safety of foods in the market to protect consumers. These inspections include everything from oranges to peanuts.

To the detriment of consumers, however, the FDA, whose funds are authorized by Congress, has historically been underfunded. In 1906, before the enactment of the FDA, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, which exposed the unsanitary and appalling conditions of the meat industry. That, coupled with the discovery of harmful and poisonous dyes in food, and the abundance of cure-all patent medicines were reason enough to start the FDA. Over the past 100 years, the organization’s responsibility has been to assess public health threats and examine them accordingly. Unfortunately, their funds in recent years have been declining, especially when compared to their sister agencies, the CDC and NIH. 

Comparison of Budgets: NIH, CDC, and FDA (Taken from NIH)

As a consequence of their severe underfunding, the FDA only regulates around 25 percent of the products that are purchased by consumers. This raises concerns for many on the quality and safety of food in the United States. In fact, several American foods are banned in other countries due to their chemical properties or production standards being considered unsafe. This includes a selection of foods from Arby’s, including their croissants, as well as chlorinated chicken, farm-raised salmon, Gatorade, and Little Debbie Swiss Rolls.  

With these concerns in mind, how well do you really know your food? Considering that public health and safety are not prioritized enough, it has become important for the American consumer to become educated on the origins and content of their food when considering their long-term health. 

In today’s world, we have access to hundreds of products that line our grocery stores, whose brands and flavors are seemingly endless. And due to the sheer abundance of our food supply, and less than desirable regulation of it, the ability to understand labels and discern between two kinds of the same food, is a useful and necessary skill. This ability makes all the difference to not only your long-term health, but the function of your organs, the quality of your sleep, your energy levels, and mental attentiveness.

Beyond this, food has been largely culturally significant throughout all of history and is often a reflection of an individual’s heritage, interests, and values. Initially, most cultural foods are simply a reflection of the region’s local produce, and how their ancestors innovated using native ingredients to create signature dishes. Japan, which is an island country(more accurately, an archipelago), has a cuisine dominated by fresh seafood and is famous for its sushi and sashimi, which is very characteristic of Japan’s geographical location and characteristics. Likewise, Mexico is a big global producer of fruits and vegetables, due to their tropical climate which allows them to produce things like avocados, bananas, and pineapples in abundance. 

Other times, the central characteristics of global cuisines are indicative of important historical developments. Tomatoes are native to South America, yet they are very prominent in the Italian diet today. When Naples was governed by Spain a few hundred years ago, they introduced the tomato to Southern Italy as a new food crop. In fact, before its widespread popularity across Italy, the tomato was widely regarded as poisonous. Only after a group of botanists misidentified it as a type of eggplant, did it really begin to spread. Despite this, today it is hard to imagine Italian cuisine without its widespread uses for the popular fruit. 

On a personal level, what food a person makes, and how they prepare it are often tell-tale signs of their values. Many people focus on hearty meals that take a lot of time and effort because they enjoy the culinary arts, or, more commonly, use cooking as an act of love for their family. Other people turn to frozen meals and eating out more in favor of expediency. Some prefer meal prepping a week in advance for its efficiency, and often in order to reach a fitness goal. With these varied interests in mind, there is no perfect solution for how everyone should approach their food intake, but rather more of a reason to educate themselves on how to improve their current habits.

Still, the impact of someone’s food intake affects a lot more than just themself. The environmental repercussions of what you consume, and how you dispose of it, are very important. While over 25% percent of the world faces food insecurity, and around 13% of households within the US, US consumers waste around ⅓ of all the foods they purchase. This high volume of food waste which ends up rotting in landfills often produces large amounts of methane, which is 80 times more harmful to the environment than CO2. Minimizing food waste, and learning about alternative ways to dispose of it in the home has the power to help the environment through achievable, low-cost efforts at home.