Connecting Food and Happiness
Food has the power to impact both hedonic and eudaimonic happiness. Indulging in our favorite foods often brings us a short-lived burst of pleasure, while the social aspects serve as a means of improving our long-term wellbeing. Gathering around food has been practiced for centuries by all cultures creating lifelong friendships, family traditions and social belonging (Delistraty, 2014). Food serves as a form of self-expression through its art form and is also a way many people express their love for others.
The overall physical and psychological health of our bodies greatly depends on the type of foods we choose to consume. Besides water, food is a basic necessity, connecting us to each other and to the earth. …show more content…
An average plate of food in America contains ingredients from five different countries (Natural resources Defense Council, 2007). Our globalized food system has disconnected us from the people who produce our food and the natural environment. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, cities and the natural world coexisted. During tragic times, such as the Great Depression, household gardens produced 40% of the total fresh produce in the United States (Naimarck, 1982). While the industrial food system has been able to produce cheap food, external environmental and human health costs are not taken into account. Monoculture crops, increased pests and chemicals inputs required for conventional food result in nutritionally deficient food products and unhealthy workers (Wilson, C., & Tisdell, C., 2001). In response, cities and communities are calling for small scale individual and community gardens to restore connections to nature and healthy sustainable foods, reaping benefits that improve physical and mental health and long-term happiness. By 2045, 70% of the world’s population is predicted to live in cities making urban gardens an inexpensive and environmentally conscious way to bring healthy food to the cities (World Health Organization 2013; Shanahan et al. 2015). Gardens can act as community spaces where individuals can unite to share currents values, knowledge and ideas (Baumeister et al., 2013). Education …show more content…
For rural sharecroppers living in the highlands, vegetable and fruit production in Guatemala, although a promising option for national export diversification, presents a great risk to farmers in terms of market uncertainties (Braun, 1994). There is a high cost to major exporters associated with quality measurement for individual farms, so farmers’ wages are kept low to make up for these costs (Carter, 1996). Farmers must produce significantly more in order to make a profit, and therefore have less land for subsistence
Food has the power to impact both hedonic and eudaimonic happiness. Indulging in our favorite foods often brings us a short-lived burst of pleasure, while the social aspects serve as a means of improving our long-term wellbeing. Gathering around food has been practiced for centuries by all cultures creating lifelong friendships, family traditions and social belonging (Delistraty, 2014). Food serves as a form of self-expression through its art form and is also a way many people express their love for others.
The overall physical and psychological health of our bodies greatly depends on the type of foods we choose to consume. Besides water, food is a basic necessity, connecting us to each other and to the earth. …show more content…
An average plate of food in America contains ingredients from five different countries (Natural resources Defense Council, 2007). Our globalized food system has disconnected us from the people who produce our food and the natural environment. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, cities and the natural world coexisted. During tragic times, such as the Great Depression, household gardens produced 40% of the total fresh produce in the United States (Naimarck, 1982). While the industrial food system has been able to produce cheap food, external environmental and human health costs are not taken into account. Monoculture crops, increased pests and chemicals inputs required for conventional food result in nutritionally deficient food products and unhealthy workers (Wilson, C., & Tisdell, C., 2001). In response, cities and communities are calling for small scale individual and community gardens to restore connections to nature and healthy sustainable foods, reaping benefits that improve physical and mental health and long-term happiness. By 2045, 70% of the world’s population is predicted to live in cities making urban gardens an inexpensive and environmentally conscious way to bring healthy food to the cities (World Health Organization 2013; Shanahan et al. 2015). Gardens can act as community spaces where individuals can unite to share currents values, knowledge and ideas (Baumeister et al., 2013). Education …show more content…
For rural sharecroppers living in the highlands, vegetable and fruit production in Guatemala, although a promising option for national export diversification, presents a great risk to farmers in terms of market uncertainties (Braun, 1994). There is a high cost to major exporters associated with quality measurement for individual farms, so farmers’ wages are kept low to make up for these costs (Carter, 1996). Farmers must produce significantly more in order to make a profit, and therefore have less land for subsistence