Five Consequences of Rationalization And It's Impact on Our Food Culture

Have you ever tried the Atkins diet or are you currently not eating gluten because someone said it's bad for you? At what point in the future will we all become so focused on function that we forget about the connection we get through events like cooking and dining with friends and family? Is our generation the adults who decided the only way to live healthy is to stop enjoying food and simply eat to live? I fear the day when our meals will consist of nothing but a meat cube that is packed with the nutrition our body needs. Forget a meat cube, imagine the kids and parents all gathering around the dinner table to enjoy their all purpose shakes. Why risk eating any solid substance when we can get all the nutrition our body needs through a straw?

I might be exaggerating some what but I have seen a dramatic change in our food culture in todays society. I get living healthy, that is one of the reasons I started this blog but I don't think we should sacrifice our dining traditions so everyone can look like body builders. As a "home chef", a parent, a fitness wannabe and a butcher, here are some consequences I have noticed from the increased rationalization of our diets.



1. Fad Diets (The Low Carb Diet)



The exploitation of people with fad diets by finding ways to make money off of quick but only temporary methods to lose weight. In the 70's and quite recently we saw a huge trend of people losing weight by eliminating all sugar from their diet; good and bad sugar. The trend is starting to fade as people have began to realize the science behind "good" carbs and "bad" carbs and the negative effects of starving the body of carbohydrates.

2. Gluten Is Bad Myth



Many people have jumped on the gluten is bad band wagon. People have no idea what it is but they know they shouldn't eat it because Dr. Oz said so. To put it simply, gluten is a component found in wheat. Unless you have a rare medical conditional like an intolerance, gluten itself is not unhealthy for you. Although, gluten is often used as an additive for processed foods because it helps hold ingredients together, so just stay away from processed food and forget the gluten free diet.

3. Everyone wants to be an Olympic athlete



It seems like every man and women wants to look like and date a fitness model. What is the point of looking like the picture above? Unless your a professional athlete or you find some kind of way to make money from revolving your entire life around fitness, what is the point? Sure it looks good and if people enjoy that lifestyle than by all means they should do what they love. But I say be happy with balancing your life with eating healthy and exercising with spending time with family and eating delicious food, you can still look amazing without being a body builder.

4. Not enough time to make a home made meal

There is a difference between not having enough time to cook a home made meal and having bad priorities. I admit I eat fast food, I usually try not to and when I do I find something semi-healthy on the menu. But sometimes... I catch myself not making a home made meal for days at a time and I can tell the difference in my families routine, how I feel and my wallet. Our society is always in the fast lane and it's easy to get caught up in it, we have to slow down and make the time to cook at home. It saves us money, our health and it's great for the family to have a good routine of bonding at home.

5. Corporations messing with our food to make more profits


We have become so rationalized that corporations monopolizing the food industry, exploiting the workers and marketing processed foods just wasn't enough. They had to find even more efficient ways to make more profits. From GMO's, antibiotics, steroids to pre packed meats we are getting closer and closer to eating the meat cubes I described earlier. Making food cheaper for people who need it is great but that's not what happened. While they secretly switched our real food with meat cubes the prices stayed the same and the prices have actually greatly increased over the last few years! How is it that they have found new efficient ways to make genetically altered food that is cheaper and easier to produce yet the prices and the pay of food industry workers did not get better?