"Studying foodways--- what foods people eat and how they produce, acquire, prepare, and consume them---- is the best way to gain deep understanding of a culture."
Write an essay in which you take a position on the statement above. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true.
Within the field of anthropology, studying a culture’s relationship with food is an excellent way to gain a deeper understanding of a specific culture. Personally, I believe that studying the food ways of a particular group or society is the best way to gain deep insight into the understanding of a distinct culture. Studying how a society interacts with food reveals many of the intrinct and valued compenents of a culture that are often times tacit in nature.
One of the most fundamental parts of a culture is the religious or spiritual views of a people. By studying foods one can decipher the religious norms of a society. This exact concept can be seen within the Jewish tradition. Jewish people are required by the Torah to only eat Kosher food due to their beliefts about pork. The culture of Islam also has similar beliefs regarding pork. Furthermore one could also look in Christianity and observe the practice of Lent where traditional Christian’s would give up eating meat for 40 days leading up to Easter. Each one of these culture’s interacts with food in different ways, revealing religious and spiritual beliefs. Obtaining this deep cultural insight couldn’t be achieved without studying foodways.
Another fundamental part of a culture is what jobs or profession hold value or importance within a society. By studying food pathways we can see what individuals hold status within a group of people. This can be seen for example in studying Japanese foodways. In Japan, becoming a Sushi chef is a highly specialized line of work. Becoming a master or as the Japanesse say “Kaizen” takes decades of devotion. This observation can only be gained by studying and analyzing food prepartion, a key component of food pathways.
By looking at common ingredients found within most meals you can gain deep insight into what food is valued by a people and in turn gain insight into many every-day cultural norms such as, farming practices, or clothing. In China rice can be found in many essential meals, it is a staple of their country. The Aztecs valued corn, or as they called it “Maize.” In order to farm Rice you need lots of wetlands, in order to farm Maize you need a temparent climate with lots of sun. By studying food pathways it can reveal the farming practices of a culture as well as the landscape that the people interact with. This reveals the every day features of a culture. The tools they use, the clothing they wear, the seasons or times of year they celebrate based on climate.
There are many aspects to a culture, it’s religion, its social structure and its food gathering practices. Deep insights into all these foundational parts of culture can be found by looking into food pathways. Given the multi-faceted nature of food and people’s interaction with food it is in conclusion the best way to study and gain knowledge about a culture.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-05-01 | Msilvasi@emich.edu | 54 | view |
Grammar and spelling errors:
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... that are often times tacit in nature. One of the most fundamental parts of a c...
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...lso has similar beliefs regarding pork. Furthermore one could also look in Christianity and...
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...be achieved without studying foodways. Another fundamental part of a culture is...
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...ion, a key component of food pathways. By looking at common ingredients found w...
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...d a temparent climate with lots of sun. By studying food pathways it can reveal ...
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... the people interact with. This reveals the every day features of a culture. The tools they u...
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, furthermore, if, look, regarding, so, well, for example, in conclusion, such as, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.5258426966 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.4196629213 105% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 14.8657303371 108% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 11.3162921348 35% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 33.0505617978 82% => OK
Preposition: 78.0 58.6224719101 133% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 12.9106741573 46% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2435.0 2235.4752809 109% => OK
No of words: 489.0 442.535393258 110% => OK
Chars per words: 4.97955010225 5.05705443957 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70248278971 4.55969084622 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98671159203 2.79657885939 107% => OK
Unique words: 233.0 215.323595506 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.476482617587 0.4932671777 97% => OK
syllable_count: 751.5 704.065955056 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59117977528 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 6.24550561798 112% => OK
Article: 6.0 4.99550561798 120% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 3.10617977528 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.77640449438 113% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.38483146067 205% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 20.2370786517 128% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 23.0359550562 78% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.7798305902 60.3974514979 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.6538461538 118.986275619 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.8076923077 23.4991977007 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.73076923077 5.21951772744 71% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 7.80617977528 77% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 10.2758426966 107% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 5.13820224719 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 15.0 4.83258426966 310% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.204451916327 0.243740707755 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0620505419551 0.0831039109588 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0591069513756 0.0758088955206 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137908603564 0.150359130593 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0578080446252 0.0667264976115 87% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.4 14.1392134831 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.8420337079 126% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.92365168539 39% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.1743820225 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.1639044944 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.57 8.38706741573 102% => OK
difficult_words: 125.0 100.480337079 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 11.8971910112 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.2143820225 82% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.7820224719 102% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.