So Much For Family Meals

So Much For Family Meals

            If the last supper was to have modern interpretation, it would most likely be called the last TV dinner in the fridge or the last time food was ordered from McDonalds. Family meals have been a cultural tradition throughout time for humans. Ever since the days of the cavemen, people from the same tribe would sit together and enjoy meals. The modern innovation of fast food and processed foods has drastically ruined the tradition of eating food with the family together.

            Prior to the innovation of fast food and processed food the whole family would sit around the table and say grace to eat together. The matriarch of the family would work hard and long to prepare the food so the whole family can get together and enjoy the food. The gravy ladle would be passed to the person who wants some sauce on their mashed potatoes; the salad would be exchanged for the person not to fond of the meat in the meal. There was a sense of bonding when the whole family would get together at a meal and exchange ideas about how each person’s day was and how they plan to spend the rest of the week. But ever since the innovation of processed and fast foods came about, the scene above was less and less apparent in the American lifestyle. And “Mom lost authority over the dinner menu”(Pollan 541).

            With the appearance of and processed food, there was no need to gather around the table and eat together because a meal can be made in less than 5 minutes instead of waiting for the whole family to get together and eat. Nowadays everyone in the family has a different schedule to go by so it is impossible to find a time to get together with the family and eat food together. According to Eric Schlosser “about 90% of the money that Americans now spend on food goes to buy processed foods.”(527). Processed foods are the food that manufacturers make prior so when the consumer gets it on their table, the food is already premade. And all the consumer has to do is just put the premade food in the microwave and they have a meal ready and hot just like momma used to make. With conflicting schedules of mom, dad and the kids, processed food allows each member of the family to have a cooked meal ready to enjoy without the hassle of cooking something from scratch.

            Besides processed food, the innovation of fast food has changed how family meals are eaten. In the United States there are thousands upon thousands of fast food restaurants in every turn. Each of them providing a different variety to choose from. There are even some fast food restaurant that even have the so called dollar menu, which basically means a menu items for a dollar. With this sort of convenience it makes sense why would a family turn away from family dinner and start eating fast foods. It is cheap and it is quick so there is no hassle to go through to make the meal.  Besides the time spent in the kitchen, preparing a food requires making a trip to the super market to buy all of the ingredients. After the ingredients are bought, the vegetables must be washed then peeled and then more effort and time needs to be put in to cook the food. If the person in charge of making food for the family has to do this several time throughout the day, there would be no time for that person to do anything else and they would really hate their duty for the family.    

            Even though the cultural tradition of having family dinners have been lessened by the innovation of fast foods and processed food, they have made life a lot easier for people. If we were to look a bit further back in time, we would imagine our ancestors huddled up in small tribes moving from one place to another looking for the next thing to eat, but when there wasn’t anything to eat or there would be some sort of natural disaster that would affect the sustainability of food, the population to shrink and that tribe would die out. Fast forward to the modern day present, we can see that there is no need for humans to be nomads because the convenience of processed and fast food makes our lives easier. Prior to the invention of processing food, the shelf life of many foods was quite minimal and when the food rots, it would be a big waste of money. And in this economy we are having, processed and fast food has helped families because it is quite hard raising a family so when the costs of feeding one’s kid is lessened it makes it a lot easier to live.  

              Having family meals is a tradition that has been a way of living and stability ever since the days of the cavemen. Sitting around the table bonds families and creates a scenery that is not replicable anywhere else. But with the innovation of processed and fast food, this cultural innovation has be lessened quite a bit. The convenience that fast foods and processed foods provides really makes life easier because they take a lot less time to make and are cheap and easy time acquire. The family meal has not totally been erased from our culture just yet, but with the human technology being improved every day, and the techniques of processing for the population to eat, this cultural tradition’s future looks bleak. Not to be pessimistic or anything but there can be a future where each family member would be huddled in ones room, taking a cube and just adding water to it and leaving it in the microwave and in seconds they would have mashed potatoes with gravy, or salad with their meal, without the hassle of walking down to the family table.