Exploring Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective Essay

This essay explores the anthropological perspective on food and eating habits, highlighting how they are socially distributed through class, culture, and religion. It examines how food choices, preparation methods, serving styles, and dining etiquette reflect societal hierarchies and cultural identities. Drawing on anthropological theories, the analysis demonstrates that food serves not only as a biological necessity but also as a powerful marker of social status, religious affiliation, and ethnic belonging. The essay concludes that the study of food and eating habits provides valuable insights into the complexities of social structures and human behavior, emphasizing the ever-evolving role of food in communicating messages about ourselves and our place in the world. Desklib provides access to similar essays and study tools.

Name:
Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective
Date:

FOOD AND EATING Last Name:
Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................2
Analysis...........................................................................................................................................2
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................3
Reference :............................................................................................................................................4
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FOOD AND EATING Last Name:
Introduction
Food is considered one of the basic needs for human beings to survive part from shelter and
clothing. However apart from being a basic necessity food and our eating habit is also
believed to shape our identity through our preferences
Analysis
The food eating habits in different regions in the world today is distributed through
social class, culture and religion.From the eating habits to preparation of foods, the way we
serve, way of eating, and the courses after having foods demonstrate various important
aspects about society’s class system (Robin 1999).
According to Robin, there is exist many kinds of food identification and the most
obvious ones being ethnic, religious and class identifications. For instance ethic food
preferences emerge as identity markers when in a foreign country or when a foreigner visits
the natives. They tend to cling on what they are used to doing or what is identical to them.
Moreover in the past the timing of eating used to high class differences. The upper class used
take breakfast as late as 10 o’clock .This distinguished them from the lower class who used to
eat very early in the morning before going to work in the fields of their masters
Looking at these aspects brings out an understanding of different degrees of hierarchy
of societal class systems. The dynamics of the eating habits are ever changing processes,
meaning changes occur to our eating routines through many ethnic mainstream foods and
lifestyle. This differentiates communities as what individuals eat which generate distinctions
between groups. For instance, the food habit of the people in the Middle Eastern countries
will be very much different from the people from the European countries or the people from
Japan (Robin, 1999).
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The eating habits can also be segmented by religion. There are various societies,
which have different eating habits according to their religion and culture. For example,
looking at the Indians beliefs and practices, the Hindus are mostly vegetarian, and
consumption of beef is strictly prohibited. On the other hand, the Muslims are generally non-
vegetarian but do eat beef, as pork is strictly not allowed due to the religious beliefs
(Featherstone,2007).
Despite these differences there exists human etiquette to be followed which
determines the social class. For example, the way we set our dining tables (the layout of
knives, forks, and glasses) display what class structure you represent. Even in various tastes
in foods, the upper classes dishes are seen as prestige as to the lower class. This maintains the
social distance through our discipline towards food and thus further confirming that eating
habits of the people are largely depicts their status in the society
Conclusion
It is therefore evidence that analysis of food and food eating habits of people from
different societies provides us with enough knowledge about the different social classes that
exists within this societies.Morever food and analysis of eating habit will continue to play the
role of coding messages about ourselves and status, role, religion and race even in the future
to come
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Reference :
Fox, R. (1999). The Myth of Nutrition. In Food and Eating: An
Anthropological Perspective. Social Issues Research Centre: Oxford
Featherstone, M.(2007) Consumer culture and postmodernism. Sage
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