Maria
Rodriguez
Professor
Reynolds
Engl
113B
May
1, 2012
The Mysteries On The Food
There are many mysteries when it
comes to different places and environments. Perhaps it is because we never take
a look, closely, to see all the different types of techniques that are used
against us to make us to consume things. Even the smallest thing in the store
is intended to be an attention grabber to our mind and our appetite. Comparing
and contrasting my mother’s cooking environment to the cooking of a fast food cooker
at a local restaurant I was able to find many differences between the quality
and freshness of the food used.
Growing up, my mother always thought
us that fruits and vegetables off the grocery store were fresh and clean, but in
reality now we come to realize that not everything is how it seems to be. As an
everyday activity, I helped my mother cook a meal for the family. She doesn’t
like using fruits and vegetables or meat that has been in the fridge for a
while, we always go grocery shopping for the ingredients she will be using. We
go grocery shopping at our local Food-For-Less that is about 9 minutes away
from my house. As we arrived we bought vegetables and chicken breasts, they
were so big that looked surreal. I asked my mom if it was okay that the chicken
breasts were so big and she answered, as usual, “the bigger the better,” but what
are you getting in reality, when you say, “the bigger the better?” The answer
would most likely be more hormones or perhaps more preservatives that harm our
body.
As soon as we got home and we started to chop the
freshly bought vegetables and some “normal size” chicken breasts. Our kitchen
is small, yet we cope to use every single bit of space of it to prepare our
delicious meals. We usually use the table or we just slosh around on the side.
Most of the time space doesn’t matter because my mom is the only one that uses
the kitchen. One thing I realized this time around; was that we always bond
with each other when we are ‘cooking,’ or at least trying to help mom. I don’t
think we would experience anything similar to this on a fast food restaurant. When
my mom cooks she always takes her time to do it because she wants everything to
come out perfect for the family. Once the meal is done we sit around and start
of with a family prayer to bless our food and then we eat. Oh yes! And let’s
not forget that my mom’s kitchen is always sparkly clean.
My mother was preparing a delicious pozole; a pozole is a Mexican
traditional dish that is prepared for any occasion. This time around she was
just preparing it because one of my sisters asked her too. She usually wakes up
real early to go to the grocery store and get everything she needs. I took her
to Food-For-Less where she bought maize, tostadas and a type of chili that is
used specially for pozole. The dish can also have chicken or beef but we
usually always make it with chicken. The preparation for the meal usually takes
about two or one hour. She starts by putting the chicken into a hot pot where
it gets tender. Then she prepares the sauce and adds it to a pot of boiling
water. Once the chicken is prepared, she cuts it into small pieces and adds it
all together including the maize. After it is all prepared she just waits for
it to boil and the dish is done.
I took my time to visit my local, right around the
corner, Burger King. The food here is not fresh at all; their meat is, “exported
from Australia” ("Mcdonalds:meats") just like the McDonalds one, this website on
McDonalds is there to answer the many questions that are asked regarding their
meat. Australia is approximately 7640 miles away from California, that’s about
16 to 18 hours away from us. Imagine how many preservatives the meat has in
order to make it good to us. Knowing what sort of preservatives are in Burger King's food can help
you make wise eating choices and know exactly what is going into your body. But
do they tell us? They actually do tell us but they name the preservatives in
such fancy words that we don’t know what they are and we are too lazy to look
up the word on the dictionary.
Burger King symbolized a
lot in my childhood because we would go there all the time with the family and
take about a half-hour or so having a meal. At Burger King I wasn’t able to see
what was being put into my food, nor was I able to see if the food was being
cooked right. I ordered cheese burger that they were promoting but once I got
it, it looked nothing like the one on the add. It was tiny and the meat looked
like it wasn’t cooked right. Also, the burger bread seemed a little too hard
for just being “made.”
As I sat and observed the
people and the space itself I saw many things that I had never realized all the
other times that I had been there. As you walk in you can smell the “freshly
cut” fries and all you can see is burgers surrounding you all over with posters
advertising the specials and promotions they have; and to remind you that you
can have a good big meal for just $4.00 a person. Every time you order
something the cashier always asks you if you want a large size for just 0.50
cents, and most of the time people say yes because it’s so cheap and the meal
is triple the size of the original one.
The chairs at Burger King
are not comfortable at all, that is because they don’t want you to stay in the
restaurant for a long time they just want you to order, eat, and leave as quick
as possible. Sometimes it takes longer for you to order than it takes them to
have your meal ready, since you spend a short amount of time in the restaurant
you don’t have time to bond with the people you went, in the other hand, when
you eat a home cooked meal, you are bonding all the way trough. In contrast to
my mother’s cooking, I realized that my mom is actually cooking and the cooks
at Burger King just put together something that has already been cooked and
shipped to them. Another major detail that I came across was that not a lot of
people go in the restaurant anymore, now they rely on the drive-thru to get
them their meal.
The colors in the
restaurants are very important. They either attract the costumer or drive them
away. A web page that has to do with the
meaning of color states that, “Today paint companies may hire a paint
psychologist to advise what shades of colors will sell best” ("Emily gems"). On Burger King we have
yellow and red, they are colors that attract the eye of the costumer and makes
them want it really bad. I asked on of the workers why they were painting the
whole dining area red, and he said it was because it made the burgers look
good. I guess they need to rely on color since the foods we see in the ads are
too much compared to what we get in reality at the restaurant.
I didn’t just rely on the
information I got from the restaurant workers I went out of my way and made
some research on the actual Burger King page. On the Burger King page I found
out that on all their locations they have what is called “detailed nutrition
information” (Burger
King Corporation) for the customers, but I didn’t seem to find one at the one I visited.
Contrary to what I read in the web page, in the store they never take the time
to explain to you what is in your meal nor do they offer you the healthy snacks
other than the fat ones.
I question myself, why did
it take me longer to observe the restaurant than it did to observe my mom’s
cooking? That is because I had more questions and concerns with the fast food
restaurant than with my mother’s kitchen because I’m so accustomed to it. As you saw there were many differences in the
quality of the meat and also in the cleanness, obviously Burger King was really
dirty compared to my house kitchen. After all, they both resemble home to me because
I went to Burger King all the time when I was little with my family. Although they
have their big differences, I still every once in a long while like going to
Burger King.
Cited Page
. "Meats." Mcdonalds:meats.
McDonald, 2011. Web. 8 Apr 2012. <http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/food_quality/see_what_we_are_made_of/your_questions_answered/meats.html>.
.
"The Meaning of Color." Emily gems. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Apr
2012. <http://crystal-cure.com/color.html>.
Burger
King Corporation, Corporate responsibility. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Apr 2012.
<http://www.bk.com/en/us/company-info/corporate-responsibility/food.html>.
