Steak: It's what for dinner Part III (Portfolio)

"...through the way we live, work and play, we don't really choose our food--our food chooses us (Patel, pp. 253)."
-Raj Patel

As I sit here and think about my steak and my accompanying feeling of manliness I have to ask myself why does this make me feel like a man? I mean come on, regardless of whether or not I eat the steak, aren't I still a man? I have facial hair, all the right parts: as far as nature is concerned, I am a man. There must just be something about the steak itself that magnifies the feelings of being a man.

Why then don't I get similar manly feelings when I dawn a bright pink, frilly scarf, or perhaps eat a Caesar Salad, with blue cheese? There can really only be one of two possibilities for an answer to this dilemma:

1. This association with steak and manliness is innate, and comes with birth, or

2. I have learned this association from my experiences.

While I think there could be a tiny possibility that the first answer is, maybe, weakly correlated to my association, I would wager that my association is a learned phenomenon. The next question would then be: Who does the teaching? This is where things get extremely complicated.

Raj Patel says that our food habits, and anything else we do with regards to food, are shaped, not just by our society, but by multi-national food conglomerates (which he backs up with a lot of facts and speculations). As much as I hate to think that I have little to no control over the food I get to eat, I have to admit, Patel makes some very convincing points.

He briefly mentions that there are three basic factors that play into what we end up eating: work and play, the neighborhoods we live in, and the jobs we get--including the time we spend traveling between them (Patel, pp 273). Basically, a certain kind of food is marketed and sold to us depending on who we are (as consumers). This marketing starts at a very young age. Advertisers know that children are easily influenced. Children want what is cool and hip, and advertisers set the standard. Then, the trend of standard setting goes up until the child is old.

During this time, advertisers (these large food companies) strive in every conceivable way to get us to buy their stuff. They know things like that the more we eat the more overweight we get. However, these kinds of things, though fought to be kept a secret from the consumer, are not primary concerns: our money is. The funny thing is, at the same time we are influenced to buy the latest bag of 'super extra nacho spicy Doritos', we get bombarded by companies like Jenny Craig to loose a couple extra pounds around the waist. Get this, Jenny Craig is part of the Nestle Corporation (Patel, pp 280). We as consumers are trapped, just like corn farmers who buy Monsanto products, in a circle. We are given new products in an attempt to make more money, but that actually contribute to some other marketing scheme when we do what the marketers want.

So, what does this have to do with my steak? EVERYTHING! I feel manly when I eat a steak because I have been ingrained with the thought that in order for a white, middle-class male to be himself he needs to eat meat. The perpetrator of this thought is the food industry. I have been hit with ads from the time I could see far enough to focus on a television. From then my first thoughts concerning anything were formed. My thoughts since that time were reinforced until I was convinced that in order to be a man I needed to have a steak! I have literally been made FOR my food, and all this just to make a buck (This whole time I thought my food was made for me!!!)