You are what you eat: Food & Identity

If you grew up in the US, the expression "you are what you eat" probably has specific connotations for you, most of which relate to the physical and health related "consequences" or "benefits" of following a certain diet. Namely, if you eat cupcakes and french fries, you are likely pudgy if not downright obese; if you eat salads and grilled (insert lean protein here), you are svelte and (thus) "desirable". I am certain I heard the expression as well as other wonders like "a moment at the lips, a lifetime on the hips" from my grandmother or my father when I made the grievous error of becoming chubby in my pre-pre-teens. But as I grow older I am learning that my home country and I have a much more complex relationship with food than this basic interpretation of the common phrase "you are what you eat" would suggest.

The idea that food (and consumption more generally) is closely linked to cultural and psychological constructs such as identity is nothing new or novel on my part (in fact, an entire chapter of my dissertation centers around the idea that being a user of a particular type of drug is an identity option). However, the extent to which Americans seem to seek out a unique identity through consumption, including food choices and diet, has become especially interesting to me lately. It all started a couple of years ago when, on my very American 70 mile commute to class I was listening to Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. Early in the book, Pollan introduces what he sees as a phenomenon unique to the US - an obsession, not with a national cuisine, but with diets, with ways of eating, many (but not all) of which are passing fads. He goes on to argue that diets would not be so successful in countries with a stronger national food identity - in France, for example, the Atkins diet would never take root because what type of French person would give up croissants or a proper baguette? But, he argues, in the US, because of the fact that we lack a food identity, such diets thrive (perhaps one could test this by looking at their prevalence in regions of the country with strong regional food identities, though it seems difficult to separate other regional differences from cuisine...).

For example, though I'm not a "dieter" per se, throughout my life, I have moved through various dietary categories, spending significant time as a vegan (a little over a year), vegetarian (many years on and off, beginning in my early teens), pescetarian (the past six years until recently), and struggling-to-be-responsible/conscientious-omnivore (the latest). A number of things happened in the past six months or so that drove me to this latest, which means I have begun to eat certain (i.e., 100% grass fed/pasture raised, local-when-possible) non-fish meats for the first time in almost a decade. And funny enough, although my body has dealt wonderfully with the transition, my mind and my heart have found it to be a bumpier road.

First, much of my identity over the past many years has related to my status as a vege- or pesce-tarian. Many (and for a while the majority) of my friends had similar eating habits. It often made travel (especially if I wanted to be a "good anthropologist" and experience local foods) difficult, and actually, this was what originally brought me back to fish after years without any meat. But it was a part of who I was, and although I didn't think of myself as an animal rights vegetarian (I do after all wear leather), since starting to eat poultry and grazing animals again I have begun to feel a certain type of guilt.

I have though long and hard (perhaps excessively) about this decision and it was ultimately my desire (stated so eloquently by Ted Kerasote in his book Blood Ties) to do as little harm as possible with my diet that actually led me back to meat. I began to rethink what I meant by harm (which I had once only conceptualized in terms of the specific animals I would or would not eat) and, living in the wide open spaces (grazing lands) of the American West, consuming ethically and humanely raised local animal products began to seem more responsible than stuffing my body with processed soy, which had become one of my only major protein sources.

So, intellectually, I feel ok about my newfound consumption patterns. But emotionally, I'm not quite there yet. I don't know if I am truly mourning the creatures I am about to eat when I tearfully thank them during preparation (this really does keep happening, especially with whole poultry), or if I am mourning the person I was for so many years. I don't know if I am feeling guilty and full of self-loathing or if I am truly appreciating the fact that I am taking a life to feed myself. And why is that life less valuable than my own or my dog's? In my brain, I know it's culture that has taught me what animals are acceptable to eat or not (after all, in some countries, my dog could be the meal), but that doesn't mean I haven't internalized it.

I'm still grappling with this and quite possibly will be for some time, as it seems harder and harder to feel truly good about anything I eat. Perhaps this is in itself a reflection of the state of a culture, of the idea that American society has come to a point where we have so little core cultural identity, we are so divided, that all of our choices, especially those relative to consumption patterns, become markers of various subgroups.