Food AutobiographyOne of the best parts of Anna’s childhood was her visits to her beloved Baba and Dedo’s house. They spoiled her rotten. Unlike at home, she had unlimited access to junk food. But the best part was getting to make and eat Cheese Perogies from scratch with her Baba. A Perogi is of European origin and consists of dough that is wrapped around a center of cheese or meat. In order to make them Anna would stand on a kitchen chair in between her Baba and sister so she could reach the counter top. Usually her Baba would let her pinch dough, but sometimes she
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would get to crack the egg. Cracking an egg seemed like a rite of passage. Her Baba could do it, her mom could do it, and Anna wanted to be able to do it too. Usually Anna was unsuccessful, and it resulted and her Baba lovingly pick eggshells out of the mixture they were creating.
Anna loved Perogies. They didn’t taste as good as McDonald’s chicken nuggets (according to her), but she helped make them and that made all the difference. Even from a young age Anna appreciated the time and love that went into preparing them. In “Something from the Oven” by Laura Sharpio the offer talks about how women in the 50’s took pride in cooking from scratch and this is why they initially refused to buy prepared foods. Women used to feel a lot of guilt using store-bought mixes and preferred to do things on their own. Overtime, buying processed foods from the grocery store became more socially acceptable. Anna couldn’t relate to the guilt women felt from buying prepared foods, because that is her normal. She can however relate to the joy that comes with taking ingredients that are nothing on their own and putting them together to make a meal for the people you love. Even though Anna’s Baba and Dedo both passed away when she was in high school, her immediate family has carried on the tradition by attempting making Perogies in their own home. But they just don’t taste the same.
Every dinner in the Warbel household is held at the dinner table and attendance is mandatory. In addition, every meal begins with a prayer. Anna was raised as Eastern Orthodox, which is a very traditional form of Christianity. This meant that fasting was and still is a part of her food world. The rules of fasting include no eating before church on Sunday, no meat on Wednesdays or Fridays, and no meat or dairy during Lent. Growing up Anna and her family followed fasting rules loosely. When she was younger she never understood fasting. Like most people she had a hard time connecting why a hotdog was significant in her relationship with God. As she grew older she realized that fasting is about practicing self-control and giving up something to grow, and still practices fasting loosely.
Dinner was not a pleasant time for Anna. From the very start she was a picky eater. She picked her favorites and refused to eat anything else. At age eight if given the option, she would have eaten chicken nuggets for every meal. (Today at eighteen this still applies.) Her main food staples included buttered noodles, leftover Halloween candy, fried chicken, Hawaiian rolls, and S’more Poptarts. If you were wondering whose parents would ever let their child eat this way? Don’t worry. Anna was forced to eat a vegetable at every dinner, but most of those memories have been blocked out. It was not uncommon for her to still be sitting at the table after everyone was done eating, because she had yet to take a bite of the atrocious little trees that sat on the plate in front of her, commonly known as broccoli. While her parents had the best of intentions their tactics left young Anna with an aversion to any vegetable, and a skewed view of nutrition.
Anna wasn’t just disgusted by veggies like most children. A lot of common foods she hated as well. For example, things like jelly, apple sauce, and yogurt were absolutely out of question, because of the texture. Pop was gross because it had fizz or “sparkles” as young Anna liked to call them. Anything that wasn’t plain: sandwiches with more than one thing on them, pizza with toppings, and pasta with sauce was too overwhelming and therefore downright disgusting.
When given the choice Anna always picked her same overly processed favorites. She clung onto the same “staples” she had as a child through middle school and the beginning of high school, refusing to branch out. It was a joke among family and friends that no matter where she goes for dinner an Italian Restaurant or a Sports Bar, she’ll order chicken tenders.
Due to her active lifestyle as a gymnast and fast metabolism Anna never physically saw the results of eating her unhealthy favorites until junior year of high school. It wasn’t then till she considered dieting and healthy eating. However, she didn’t really know where to begin. She knew that vegetables were healthy and candy was unhealthy, but what about everything in between? With no real nutrition knowledge, she turned to her equally non-qualified friends. The kind of diets her friends suggested were so extreme and often involved avoiding things that Anna was raised eating at every meal like carbs. Anna tried this new “clean eating”, but the diets were too challenging and never left her satisfied. She often would come home from school hungry and end up eating a whole bag of Cheetos or a whole box of Oreos and wouldn’t be able to stop. Eating healthy seemed unmanageable for Anna. It was too hard and she was way too picky. She’d much rather have an entire box of Oreos for dinner instead of a salad.
As a freshman in college her food horizons broadened, and she grew to love things she once would never dare to eat, such as sushi, guacamole, and spinach. Having a dining hall with an abundance of foods readily available helped Anna discover all the different types of healthy foods that were out there. However, she still would rather have an entire box of Oreos for dinner instead of salad, and sometimes she did.
A big turning point in Anna’s food education journey was taking a college class on environmentally sustainability and entomology. The class informed Anna about agriculture and for the first time ever it got her thinking about what was on her plate. She knew more than ever about food and a lot of the things she was learning disturbed her, specifically the external cost of the foods she was eating. Anna continued eating the same amount of meat, dairy, fast food, and processed foods she always had, but now with a side of guilt.
This year watching documentaries like Food INC she learned that the fast food industry and major food corporations are responsible for our food production system becoming an assembly line and a corrupt science. For Anna, the facts and graphic images hit hard, but yet her eating habits continued. It makes her wonder how many disturbing facts does one need to discover before it elicits them to make a personal change? It also makes her wonder how required food education could positively change the habits of Americans?
After taking Industrial foods her sophomore year of college Anna was thinking about food more than ever. Never before had she put so much consideration into what she was fueling herself with. Previously she only connected eating healthily with vanity. Little did she realize how her unhealthy diet not only affected her body but her athletic performance, mood, and most importantly the world around her. Anna has found a new love for farmer’s markets grocery shopping and is very excited to learn how to cook for when she has a kitchen next year. She avoids packaged snacks because she has come to realize that they often don’t offer good nutrition for how many calories they have. She still has her unhealthy favorite dishes but eats them in moderation and only when she has time to sit and enjoy them. After reading Eating Meat in class Anna has significantly decreased her meat intake. She tries to incorporate it as a side, rather than a main dish.
More than anything Anna wants to share everything she has learned with others because she believes being informed is what will elicit change. She feels everything she’s learned is so important, because food is such a huge part of our lives. Anna hopes to see food talked about in a different way and to see the industry return back to its roots. Not everything about the industrialization of food is bad. It has allowed a large amount of people to be fed efficiently. After all we cannot all be farmers. But we have lost so many things like taste, nutrition, and our planet in the shift to industrial foods. Hopefully in the near future we can find a compromise between the industry now and what it once was.
Anna loved Perogies. They didn’t taste as good as McDonald’s chicken nuggets (according to her), but she helped make them and that made all the difference. Even from a young age Anna appreciated the time and love that went into preparing them. In “Something from the Oven” by Laura Sharpio the offer talks about how women in the 50’s took pride in cooking from scratch and this is why they initially refused to buy prepared foods. Women used to feel a lot of guilt using store-bought mixes and preferred to do things on their own. Overtime, buying processed foods from the grocery store became more socially acceptable. Anna couldn’t relate to the guilt women felt from buying prepared foods, because that is her normal. She can however relate to the joy that comes with taking ingredients that are nothing on their own and putting them together to make a meal for the people you love. Even though Anna’s Baba and Dedo both passed away when she was in high school, her immediate family has carried on the tradition by attempting making Perogies in their own home. But they just don’t taste the same.
Every dinner in the Warbel household is held at the dinner table and attendance is mandatory. In addition, every meal begins with a prayer. Anna was raised as Eastern Orthodox, which is a very traditional form of Christianity. This meant that fasting was and still is a part of her food world. The rules of fasting include no eating before church on Sunday, no meat on Wednesdays or Fridays, and no meat or dairy during Lent. Growing up Anna and her family followed fasting rules loosely. When she was younger she never understood fasting. Like most people she had a hard time connecting why a hotdog was significant in her relationship with God. As she grew older she realized that fasting is about practicing self-control and giving up something to grow, and still practices fasting loosely.
Dinner was not a pleasant time for Anna. From the very start she was a picky eater. She picked her favorites and refused to eat anything else. At age eight if given the option, she would have eaten chicken nuggets for every meal. (Today at eighteen this still applies.) Her main food staples included buttered noodles, leftover Halloween candy, fried chicken, Hawaiian rolls, and S’more Poptarts. If you were wondering whose parents would ever let their child eat this way? Don’t worry. Anna was forced to eat a vegetable at every dinner, but most of those memories have been blocked out. It was not uncommon for her to still be sitting at the table after everyone was done eating, because she had yet to take a bite of the atrocious little trees that sat on the plate in front of her, commonly known as broccoli. While her parents had the best of intentions their tactics left young Anna with an aversion to any vegetable, and a skewed view of nutrition.
Anna wasn’t just disgusted by veggies like most children. A lot of common foods she hated as well. For example, things like jelly, apple sauce, and yogurt were absolutely out of question, because of the texture. Pop was gross because it had fizz or “sparkles” as young Anna liked to call them. Anything that wasn’t plain: sandwiches with more than one thing on them, pizza with toppings, and pasta with sauce was too overwhelming and therefore downright disgusting.
When given the choice Anna always picked her same overly processed favorites. She clung onto the same “staples” she had as a child through middle school and the beginning of high school, refusing to branch out. It was a joke among family and friends that no matter where she goes for dinner an Italian Restaurant or a Sports Bar, she’ll order chicken tenders.
Due to her active lifestyle as a gymnast and fast metabolism Anna never physically saw the results of eating her unhealthy favorites until junior year of high school. It wasn’t then till she considered dieting and healthy eating. However, she didn’t really know where to begin. She knew that vegetables were healthy and candy was unhealthy, but what about everything in between? With no real nutrition knowledge, she turned to her equally non-qualified friends. The kind of diets her friends suggested were so extreme and often involved avoiding things that Anna was raised eating at every meal like carbs. Anna tried this new “clean eating”, but the diets were too challenging and never left her satisfied. She often would come home from school hungry and end up eating a whole bag of Cheetos or a whole box of Oreos and wouldn’t be able to stop. Eating healthy seemed unmanageable for Anna. It was too hard and she was way too picky. She’d much rather have an entire box of Oreos for dinner instead of a salad.
As a freshman in college her food horizons broadened, and she grew to love things she once would never dare to eat, such as sushi, guacamole, and spinach. Having a dining hall with an abundance of foods readily available helped Anna discover all the different types of healthy foods that were out there. However, she still would rather have an entire box of Oreos for dinner instead of salad, and sometimes she did.
A big turning point in Anna’s food education journey was taking a college class on environmentally sustainability and entomology. The class informed Anna about agriculture and for the first time ever it got her thinking about what was on her plate. She knew more than ever about food and a lot of the things she was learning disturbed her, specifically the external cost of the foods she was eating. Anna continued eating the same amount of meat, dairy, fast food, and processed foods she always had, but now with a side of guilt.
This year watching documentaries like Food INC she learned that the fast food industry and major food corporations are responsible for our food production system becoming an assembly line and a corrupt science. For Anna, the facts and graphic images hit hard, but yet her eating habits continued. It makes her wonder how many disturbing facts does one need to discover before it elicits them to make a personal change? It also makes her wonder how required food education could positively change the habits of Americans?
After taking Industrial foods her sophomore year of college Anna was thinking about food more than ever. Never before had she put so much consideration into what she was fueling herself with. Previously she only connected eating healthily with vanity. Little did she realize how her unhealthy diet not only affected her body but her athletic performance, mood, and most importantly the world around her. Anna has found a new love for farmer’s markets grocery shopping and is very excited to learn how to cook for when she has a kitchen next year. She avoids packaged snacks because she has come to realize that they often don’t offer good nutrition for how many calories they have. She still has her unhealthy favorite dishes but eats them in moderation and only when she has time to sit and enjoy them. After reading Eating Meat in class Anna has significantly decreased her meat intake. She tries to incorporate it as a side, rather than a main dish.
More than anything Anna wants to share everything she has learned with others because she believes being informed is what will elicit change. She feels everything she’s learned is so important, because food is such a huge part of our lives. Anna hopes to see food talked about in a different way and to see the industry return back to its roots. Not everything about the industrialization of food is bad. It has allowed a large amount of people to be fed efficiently. After all we cannot all be farmers. But we have lost so many things like taste, nutrition, and our planet in the shift to industrial foods. Hopefully in the near future we can find a compromise between the industry now and what it once was.