Food culture at home vs. Corporate eating:

Growing up in New York with the privilege of have having world traveling parents, i was exposed to numerous types of food from cultures all over the world. When i was younger i was not a very picky eater, i would eat pretty much anything that was in front of me and was not fearful of trying something i might not like. whenever we would travel, we would eat the food "normal" for that country. I remember my mom and I traveling along with my dad and his film students to places like Mexico city, Edinburgh, and London where he would actually grade them down if he caught them eating at a McDonald's or other restaurants that could have been found back home.

Meanwhile back when we where in the states my parents both did a lot of cooking. My dad has always been a little more experimental with his cooking, he is great at following a recipe he sees in a newspaper or cookbook but also amazing at preparing a meal from what we have laying around the house. I remember eating a lot of homemade pasta dishes and the occasional steak. My mom on the other hand follows the same recipes from her family, lots of comfort food; mac and cheese and big soups and stews. When i was younger i do not remember ordering out a lot, but i do remember eating out quite a bit at small family run spots that most of the time where recommend to us by family friends.

I was about 7 years old when i made the conscience decision to eliminate all red meats from my diet. I had the aspiration of becoming a vet because I had such a love for animals. I felt if I was going to be saving them I probably should not be eating them. Around the age of 11 I was set on eliminating meat entirely from my diet but was told my body needed some source of protein so i stuck to a lot of chicken and fish, and the occasional turkey on thanksgiving. It has been a good 9 years since I have had a bite of anything other than chicken, turkey or fish. I sometimes feel the way I eat affects the freedom my parents have to eat what they want, they recently had a porterhouse steak and talked about how good it was and how they missed eating like that.

We order in a lot more than we used to, in out neighborhood it is extremely expensive but there is food from just about every country imaginable. Some of our favorites are Indian, Pakistani, Mexican, Italian and french. It seems that even when we cook at home it still cost us a lot of money. Before wholefoods opened we used to shop at a typical grocery store when there was nothing but completely fake and processed food, the only good thing was that is was relatively cheaper than what we pay now. Whenever I go food shopping with my mom the bill is always over 100 and that is on a day when we do not even buy much. On weekend we try and support out local farmers market at much as possible, buying there fruits and vegetables, sometimes even milk.

Overall I try and eat as healthy as possible, I find that hard to do sometimes during lunch because of the options around the school. last year I used to go to Pax everyday and eat a salad but that has gotten way over priced. I defiantly eat healthier when I am home than when i am out with friends.