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>.