social norms | GEOG 30 – Our Perspectives

One experience I have had in dealing with social norms and food choice was at a seafood buffet in Maryland. I really dislike most types of seafood, but I was with my girlfriend’s family. One of their main goals on this vacation was to eat at this particular restaurant. It was about $30 per person, and they paid for me to enter. After such a high price I felt pressured to at least try a large variety of foods. I did not enjoy any of it, and out of six full plates I wasted about 3/4 of the food. I felt terrible for wasting it, but they assured me that it was fine, because we were at a buffet and people wasted food all the time, and we essentially paid for the food anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
This leads to a social issue of food waste, which in turn causes environmental issues. The food that I personally wasted, and the food that other people consistently waste leads to an abundance of over-fishing. I was overwhelmed by the high price to try as much food as I could and “get my monies worth” but at the expense of wasting food. Even though I wasn’t paying any additional money, I was paying for it in environmental costs. After my terrible experience I ended up just going to McDonald’s and eating very cheap food, which was essentially wasteful because I had already had so much other food. The social norm should be if you don’t like food, don’t get it instead of trying to “get your monies worth.”

Jason Brown

I go through a situation every year where my food choice is influenced by social norms, and that time of year is Christmas Eve. My family is Catholic and my mom’s side of the family is 100% Italian. Each Christmas Eve, all of our family and friends gather at our house where we celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes. I have never been really into fish and this has tested me each year. We prepare fried cod, smelts, crab, and tons of other dishes. One of the main items that people go for is pasta with an anchovies sauce. It is infused with different flavors that help to hide the fishy-ness of the sauce, so those who don’t like fish go for that. Every year, I adjust though and I eat the fish even though I may not enjoy all of it. I do it for my family and my religion. I have started to adjust to some of the fish and have enjoyed it recently. But I had to warp my preferences to go with the norms of the dinner and be with my family for my religion.

One of the main societal issues that comes from this dinner is food waste. Every year, adults and kids will try new foods or different types of fish and if they don’t like it, it goes right to the trash can. I can’t tell you how many times that I have walked around after the party and found half eaten food on plates just sitting around. This directly relates to ethics. While we are blessed to have the food, by wasting it we are showing no empathy for the millions of people starving around the world. This is one of the main issues with society. People need to appreciate all that they have cause many others have nothing close to that. The social norm for this should be people finding ways to try new foods in ways that excite them. Like if they were to mix the food with something else or just simply leave it be and let others eat it. This way there would be less wasted food and more people would be happy with the end result.