During the first few weeks here at Penn State, I made friends who avoided certain meat products because of their religion and own personal views. While most of my other friends are not practicing Hindus, our views on meat were different. As the year progressed my friend started to change his views on eating beef, since everyone else in the group had no religious restrictions on eating any beef products. While no of us ever forced my friend to eat beef, the social norms of our group slowly persuaded him to try it. This is a perfect example that shows how a change in the people you are around can change a person’s own views. Even now that my friend openly eats beef while at Penn State, he still does not eat beef when he visits home. This is due to the fact that the social norm at home is still to no eat beef.
My friend lived an anti-beef life style before coming to Penn State for two reasons. The Hindu religion sees cows as sacred animals, and consuming their meet is considered morally wrong, he also saw a no beef diet as a way to eat on a lower trophic level. As shown in the module, it takes a significant amount of planted crops to produce a single unit of livestock. If the crops used to raise the livestock were fed directly to the consumers more people could be fed. By eating less meat, the crop yields could be used in a more sustainable matter and would be able to provide a nutritious diet to more people, effectively decreasing hunger. I do not believe anyone’s religious views should be compromised to fit social norms. I agree with my friends’ reason that eating on a lower trophic level can be beneficial in solving world hunger. If the social norm of every meat-eater was to limit their consumption slightly, it could have a huge impact on people suffering from hunger.
Hello Nick, I’m Brenton. I enjoyed reading your post and I had a
similar experience when living in Kenya. Specifically, it was very
common to eat lamb in the area I was staying. While I had never much
liked eating lamb in the past, a local friend invited me over for his
birthday and they stuffed the stomach full of vegetables and cooked
it. It came to be one of my favorite dishes during my time there.
Here is a link to my post:
http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/29/module-6-brenton-mcdonald/
Hi Nick! My name is Amanda and here is a link to my blog:
http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/29/module-6-blog-amanda-giedroc/
In my blog post, I talk about the social norm of eating healthier by reducing the intake of meat. Our food experiences are the complete opposite of one another! My friend’s social norm encouraged me to not eat meat, while your friend over time began to eat meat. It is interesting to see how social norms can influence people both ways. In our diagrams, we both mention how eating more meat produces an increase in the amount of plants needed as well. We both discussed how eating less meat over time can have dramatic impacts on the sustainability of the environment. Overall, I thought your post was great.
Hi, I’m Jim a student at Penn State U Park. Here’s a link to my blog
http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/29/shaud-unit-6/
I enjoyed how you compared something that involved societal norms in two places. Because the norm is one place (Penn State) had a very different impact than the practice in the other culture, this was a great problem to pick. It’s interesting to note that because societal norms in other countries have a benefit unique to that area, it is considered okay by people from that area to change their norms when they are elsewhere. I respect how they changed it back to their culture when home. Overall the comparison to consumption at this area and other areas in the world, and the consequences of this consumption, are very interesting. Great post!