Reggie Stephens Professor Chris Wheeler English 101 September 7, 2010 The Way Eating Habits Has Affected My Life It’s really astonishing how much our eating habits influence our every day life. From the economy, to the health issues, to the way we go on about our everyday life. For me, my eating habits have changed a lot and a big part of it is health and the fact that I haven’t lived in one single place for more than seven years. It all started as far back as I can remember. Well first of all let me start off by saying where I’m from. I was born in North Charleston, South Carolina. I was raised there till I was seven.
Down around that area, there’s a lot of food that doesn’t make it into people’s homes around the state. Growing up, my family wasn’t particularly wealthy. In the low country, when you’re on the bottom of the totem pole, you make due with what you can afford. I wasn’t much of a big eater growing up so I think it’s safe to say I was pretty healthy. My grandma was the cook of the house. It wasn’t about quality it was about quantity in her house. There were seven mouths to feed so I guess keeping a lot of food around the house was an enormous chore for her. The kinds of food we had could usually be found at a local grocery store or meat market.
These items included but is not limited to, grits, bologna, livers, rice collards, neck bones, pigtails, a variety of beans and so on. I guess it’s safe to say we were the ideal “southern cooking people”. Our heritage is Gala, meaning we are African descendents. Dishes like red rice, collard greens, lima beans and neck bones, and smoked pig tails, are some of the vast foods you would down around that area. I guess it molded them because their all on the big side of the family. Maybe eating a lot of food was the way they chose to mold themselves and their eating habits.
Somehow, a couple of us though, dealt with the way in which we consumed our food. For example, two of my cousins and I were the only “average sized people”. I guess it’s because we didn’t eat as much as everybody else. We did however, have to sacrifice some things to eat differently from everyone else. We were supposed to “clean our plates”, before we said we were done, but usually a couple taps on the bum was the consequence for not eating everything in our plate. Even though not eating everything was sometimes the case, we did always come together as a family.
We knew that whenever dinner was being served, we were to be at the table, napkin in our laps, and to not touch anything until everyone was seated and grace was said. Good manners played a big part in the molding of our eating habits too. I guess the reason I didn’t even get to go inside a McDonalds, is because we had food stamps. Cookouts were usually our source for hamburgers and other speedily prepared food. Although we didn’t have fast food all the time, the cholesterol, calories, and fat still somehow managed to stick around. Fried chicken tasted good but was full of grease. Rice was good but the starches really stuck to us.
A good thing about our food situation though is that whenever a dinner or breakfast was being prepared, I was right there to watch as it was being made. It served me good to. I pays off that I don’t have to depend on microwave dinners, or fast food restaurants to satisfy my hunger. Maybe that’s why when it comes to food, I prefer the home cooked meals. I really don’t think any of this affected me or how I eat. I make my own decisions on what, when , and how much I eat. So in my own way, I have my own mold. Having that said, we all were taught and took our own decisions on how our eating habits will and have took an affect on our lifestyles.
