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Imagine if the world without food what will happened? Of course, we will die. But, if people can live without the food, then, what will happen? We will lose a lot. We can no longer eat with our friends, and have some interesting chat, and so on. The functions of food are not just making us full; it not only can keep our life, but also can let our life full of color. Food can bring us different emotions. We have different feeling when we eat different food with different people, in different place. Food can show what people’s thinking. Why we eat this? How we eat this? Who we eat with? The answer of this question can show what we are thinking about, our value, our social relationship, and so on. And also, these answers can show one living condition.

Food is a supporter of emotion. Once I went to a Chinese restaurant with a friend. I ordered a preserved egg with minced congee. It is not taste as good as what I ate in China, but every time when I go to that place I will still order one. I realized what I loved was not the congee itself, but the feeling when I have it. This time, food is not only as food for me, but also as a supporter of emotion. It pin the emotion that I missing my hometown and my family. Now I am living in the U.S., I missing the handmade noodles made by my grandmother, but what I am really missing not just the noodle, but my grandmother, and my family, and everything that I cannot get in America. In Geoff Nicholson’s article “Eating White”, the author says “Today I ate lunch in memory of my mother. … and every once in a while I feel the need to replicate the kind of lunch she and I ate together may times.”(21). Why author says this? Why he ate the same thing that he have with his mother in the past? Because he is missing his mother, and pins this emotion to those food. Also, in the article “Home Run-My Journey Back to Korean Food”, which written by Roy Ahn, the author talks about the Korean food and Korean identity. Author believe that eat Korean food can show his Korean identity. He also put his emotion in the food.

Food can show people’s value. We can find out what people are cares about from which food product they are prefer. For example, as what Joshua Freedman and Dan Jurafsky were mentioned in their article “Authenticity in America- class distinctions in Potato Chip Advertising” upper class more are about the health, the material and technology. Lower classes more like the taste, price. In this article, the authors say this “Food is a robust marker of group identity. What you had for dinner yesterday says a lot about your national identity, ethnicity, or social class, and this link between food and culture …” (46). They did some research in potato Chips’ cover bag, and find out above things. I also did some research in food advertisement. What I focus on is butter advertisement, because butter is one of the most common things that appeal in Americans’ table. I find out that convenience is the most important element in butter. People are care about the spread ability of the butter.

Food can show how people how communicate with each other, and their relationship. We can know whether those people are close to each other or not by their eating behavior.  Sandra Cate was written an article about the “Spread” in prison. She talks about the principles about how they share their spread. She notes one’s explaining “Everybody puts in the even, same amount, and everybody gets the even, same amount.”(19). This eating behavior shows that inmates are equal, they put same amount, and get same amount. No one is special in this place. After she notes inmate Devon Gray’s speaking “In here the whites spread with the whites and the blacks spread with the blacks.”(19), she find out that sharing spread is a community which always racially defined.

Food reflects our living conditions. The modern pace of life is getting fast and fast. So, our eating style was changed. We spent less and less time in eating, and most of time we have meal alone. Especially for the workers and students they have less time to eat their meal. The author of “Eating at the Edge” writes “Manuel Castells agrees: we live in a ‘timeless time,’ he writes, in which instantaneous satellite transmissions, high-speed transit, and global marketplace of information capital generate ‘space of place.’”(42). I think this is one of the reasons to why we change our eating behavior. And, the food we eat now also can show what living condition that we live.

As far as I concerned, food play a very important role in our life. It can show what you are thinking. We can know one’s emotions, values, social relationship, and living conditions by observe what are they eating and how they are eating.