How Does Culture Affect Food Choice?

My name is Emily Griffin and I am originally from the small rainy town of Laurel, Oregon. I grew up on a hobby farm in the Willamette Valley that provided nearly all our fruits and vegetables as a family, as well as raising sheep, geese, rabbits, a pygmy goat, multiple dogs, cats, rabbits, and a horse. I am a first generation American from German parents, and through this blog I hope to share personal anecdotes about my background as it relates to the study of Nutrition.

In particular, the question of how our cultural background affects food choice greatly interests me. I remember being sent to elementary school with a packed lunchbox every day which included a German-influenced sandwich like ‘head cheese’ in aspic or blood sausage on rye bread. Pickled or raw herring with onions was a favorite at the table, and boiled potatoes with flaxseed featured in wintertime. These foods were normal to me but elicited some raised eyebrows from friends.

Culture plays an enormous role in the foods we choose to eat daily. “Cultural influences lead to the difference in the habitual consumption of certain foods and in traditions of preparation, and in certain cases can lead to restrictions such as exclusion of meat and milk from the diet.” (“EUFIC: The Factors That Influence Our Food Choices,” 2006). In fact, much of the time “food is cultural, not nutritional. A plant or animal may be considered edible in one society and inedible in another.” (Reddy, Sreedhar, et al., 2015). Raw herring is an acquired taste, to be sure.

Though most of my parents’ Baltic food habits remained in their recipe vernacular over the decades they spent in the United States, they did amend their diet in notable ways: pork was rarely consumed, certainly far less than traditional meals would include. Instead, much higher quantities of Pacific salmon featured on our dinner table, as well as the Oregon staples of filberts (hazelnuts), marionberries, blackberries, and pears. Adjusting the typical foods that my family ate around the table is not a new phenomenon for an immigrant family. The European Food Information Council notes that “cultural influences are … amenable to change: when moving to a new country individuals often adopt particular food habits of the local culture.” (“EUFIC: The Factors That Influence Our Food Choices,” 2006).

I notice the keen impact that culture has on individual food choice now that I am married. My husband is from a French-Canadian family, and their table is usually filled with hearty meats, potatoes, a sauce or gravy of some sort, and fresh fruits or vegetables only when in season in the summertime. My personal intake of fish, vegetables, and fruit was much higher growing up, not only due to accessibility, but because these were conscious decisions reinforced by my parents. “Social support from within the household … [is] positively associated with improvements in fruit and vegetable consumption and with the preparative stage of improving eating habits, respectively.” (“EUFIC: The Factors That Influence Our Food Choices,” 2006).

When purchasing groceries for my family now, I tend to look through the aisles with a “what would my Mom buy” mentality, a habit that reflects the idea that “[f]ood choice does not occur in a vacuum and people make decisions based on their psycho-socio-cultural backgrounds, and they constantly try to equilibrate among these factors, personal disposition, and what they learn throughout their lifespan about food and eating practice from significant and influential individuals including parents, family members, peers, friends, partners, and couples.” (Roudsari et al, 2017). This buying practice might not always work, and sometimes comes with guilt, but it directs me towards the healthy foods that I grew up eating.

CITATIONS:

- “The Factors That Influence Our Food Choices.” The Factors That Influence Our Food Choices: (EUFIC), 6 June 2006, www.eufic.org/en/healthy-living/article/the-determinants-of-food-choice.

- Reddy, Sreedhar, et al. “Culture and Its Influence on Nutrition and Oral Health.” Biomedical and Pharmacology Journal, 25 Oct. 2015, biomedpharmajournal.org/vol8octoberspledition/culture-and-its-influence-on-nutrition-and-oral-health/.

- Haghighian Roudsari, Arezoo, et al. “Psycho-Socio-Cultural Determinants of Food Choice: A Qualitative Study on Adults in Social and Cultural Context of Iran.” Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatry & Psychology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Oct. 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5816913/.