Reflection of Writ 1133

This course has opened me up to the whole concept of Food Cultures and Values.  While I eat multiple times each day, and pick my foods I never noticed how both the subconscious and conscious decisions effect my life and the society I live in.  Readings from so many different authors and about so many different topics brought a much larger perspective on food from a traditional home cooked family meal to prison, spreads, asian heritages, animal slaughter, economics, politics, health issues, to McDonaldization and our fast paced lifestyles.  These are all such important issues different issues and it was extremely interesting to see how they relate people from all over the world, different eras or classes, genders or races by something as simple as food.  It really showed me that many issues that we worry about can be boiled down, or at least identified in small everyday activities.  And from that even the choices we make on seemingly mundane tasks can have a large impact on society both for the better and for the worse.  I will use this information to make more informed decisions about food. I will use the information to read more into my values, and make choices throughout my life that will impact me and others in the ways I value.  Also noticing other people’s views on Food Values showed me how different people who I assume are similar to me can be.  Showing respect to this is important.  

The research writing in this course was really interesting and useful to me.  I will use information about how to cite, how to begin research, how to use the facilities around Denver to my best ability.  Using short essays and blog posts to develop ideas and creativity before jumping into larger research essays helped the process, as well as getting feedback from classmates was interesting.  The way food was so easily relatable made learning the research writing techniques much easier than say attempting to write research essays on more technical subjects such as science, yet what was learned will be easily transferred to other such topics.