Food Globalization in China Essay

In most Chinese traditional families, family members would baffle around the dining table and dine together. Every iodin would talk ab discover the sidereal day snip and bond as a family. Usually, it would be the yield who would buy groceries subsequently work and return home to cook for the family. Some judgment of convictions, the father, the children or even the grandpargonnts would support out in the kitchen. The mother of the family would always consider the nutrition, thus for every(prenominal) dish, it would be well-prep bed, making sure that every family member would non guard any health problems, such as getting sick or malnutrition. This was what a Chinese traditional family would be like in the departed where fasting victuals take inerys and instant food were scarce.Todays Chinese family has alter tremendously. Purchasing meals at fast food restaurants is such an booming task comp ard to the loads of work and preparation for cooking at home. As a go forth, a mother has lost her chance to amplification her capability expenditure that she would have spent on traveling to the grocery store, choosing and purchasing items, and returning home to cook. In addition, the bonding time for the family has shined collect to lack of interactions such as cooking and dining together. Instead, a mother has fix other ways to countenance food for the family.She would ofttimes go straight to a nearby fast food chain, make a take-away order or purchase instant French fries or noodles from a nearby supermarket. Likewise, compared to the traditional way of Chinese dinners, where families depend upon around a table of different dishes, fast food menus are mostly set for individuals, the amount of time that a family spends together is once more decreased, and this ulcerous regimen may slowly lead to unpredicted illnesses.In a matter of time, whether you are sitting in a restaurant or walking along the shopping regularises of Shanghai, you look arou nd and you could experience humongous large number with waist like pillars, arms that looks like thighs and thighs that engrave against each other when they walk, one hand holding a form of Pepsi and the other feeding themselves with McDonalds cheese burger. There will be no more mass with wrinkles and white hair. The life expectancy has dropped to fifty. This is non an illusion but an anticipated look of the future The Fat mainland chinaware. accord to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, globalisation is the development of an developmently integ regularised global economy, which is marked by the increase in cross-border flows of goods, services, money, people, information and gardening. It brings the world together by public exposure different ideas, making foreign products easier to access, speeding up the grand of life, and increasing the understanding around us. Most countries welcome the deal of globalization, which symbolizes advancements.However, the electronegative consequences on Chinese culture are deniable and are not cost the consequences. food for thought globalization is spreading through the worlds divers(a) cultures in the form of fast food restaurants, high-caloric bever eras, supermarkets supplying instant food and high-caloric imported products, and culture changes that affect family bonding time. These changes have resulted in unhealthy diets, a decrease of energy expenditure, and illnesses such as corpulency. Food globalization is causing a negative effect in mainland China.Since the 1980s, Chinas openness has led to the growth of foreign fast food imprisonment in China. Coca-cola, Starbucks, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Hagen-Daz, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin-Robbins, Pepsi, DQ, Pizzahut, atomic number 91 Johns and Mcdonalds can be found almost everywhere in China (Popkin). gibe to Wen Dale, a member of the International Forum on globalisation, McDonalds alone has opened up to at least 235 restaurants in China, excluding 158 Mcdonald s franchises in Hong Kong.Every time when I go by McDonalds in China, I can see the long lines of people, waiting for their turn to purchase the high-caloric food. When I visited Hangzhou (a city next to Shanghai) at the age of six, I already saw many KFCs around Hangzhou. Todays Hangzhou is way different compared to twelve years ago, it is more modernized, and at the selfsame(prenominal) time, it is crowded with fast food restaurants. In the shopping district of Hangzhou, in that respect are not only Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton but as well McDonalds, Pizzahut, Hagen-Dazs, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin-Robbins, Papa Johns, Starbucks and many other fast food chains. globalization brought westernization, successfulness into China as well as fast food chains.According to A.Michelle Mendez, a nutritional epidemiologist who received her masters in epidemiology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, supermarkets, for example, have accounted for 48 per centum of the urban food market s in China, an increase beyond the 30 percent take in 1999. With this increase of urban food markets in China, the traditional markets that provide fresh and un impact products has started to decline, leading to a higher expenditure of processed food. Furthermore, these urban food markets are not only found in cosmic cities but also in poorer areas. (Mendez) The growing presence of carrefour and Metro that imports foreign products brought giant stores that offer a wide revolution of high caloric snacks and soft drinks, increasing the handiness of unhealthy products. For example, the need imports of French fries from the United States has increased tenfold between 1995 and 1999 (Mendez). Food globalization that increased the number of foreign investments produces negative changes to the Chinese Cultures (Dale). Globalization has brought large foreign supermarket firms and fast food chains into China. All of these has resulted in lifestyle changes which include a shift from nat ural-homemade food and beverages consumed to processed ones, a higher wasting disease of foreign food, a driving dietary change, an increase intake of caloric sweeteners, a reduced food preparation time and an increase in intake of pre-cooked foods. These led to an increase in corpulency prize in China.For foreign food chains to produce large amount of ingredients and products and ship them all the way across the Atlantic and peaceful oceans, unhealthy chemicals are often added during production. The contemporary world is characterized by an intense, continuous, extensive interplay between the indigenous and the imported. (Jackson) This is demonstrated through the importing and export of fast food ingredients. According to John Andrew, a citizen journalist, these chemicals are sometimes known as food additives and not all food additives employ are foods. Instead, they are chemical that are generally recognized as safe (Andrew).Almost all of these additives are nowhere to be f ound in a local supermarket, instead, some are found in inedible products like tox antifreeze, silicone caulk, soap, sunscreen and play sand (Andrew). As reported by Riddhi Shah, a writer for the website Salon, Sally Davies, a newfangled York photographer started a part-art, part-food science experiment. Davies documented a McDonalds apt Meal every few days until it spoiled. Even at day 137, the meal passive looks pretty gr course (Shah). After reading this experiment, how would people still feel safe and happy consuming these Happy Meals? overwhelming foods with chemicals or food additives may damage long-term health.Globalization brought changes that I have personally encountered. In 2007, the number of foreign franchises in China could be counted with ten fingers. There were only a few Starbucks and McDonalds opened their first outlet near the downtown Wulin Square, the shopping district in Hangzhou. However, after only three years, the number of Starbucks has quadrupled. Toda y, there are at least eight Starbucks in Hangzhou compared to the only one slight than five years ago.Because Starbucks is present everywhere, it is easy for individuals to grab a form of Caramel Frappuccino (which is about 430 calories) whenever passing by. This availability has brought about a rush of coffee addicts in China as well as load gains. Likewise, the newly opened Starbucks near Hangzhou International School where I accompanied high school attracts many students and capacity daily. This situation also happens to the McDonalds near the school. The increase in availability has caused a tremendous increase in junk food consumption among the staff and students. It is easy for students and faculty to grab a coffee, or a muffin before or after school.In most countries, especially the United States, Asians are often stereotyped as skinny. However, this perception will have to be altered in the coming decade. In the past, malnutrition has been the main health problem in Chi na. According to pile. A Levine, a professor of Medicine at mayo Clinic in Minnesota, more than 60 million people have execute obese in China (Levine). The data presents 23 percent of Chinese race is overweight. 12 percent adults and 8 percent children have obesity (Levine).The more unspoilt problem is that Levine has predicted by 2020, the obesity population in China will exceed that of the United States. The Chinese population is one of the largest in the world and if as predicted by Levine, the Chinese obesity rate rises, the whole world will be affected by this change. Misra points out that the obesity and the metabolic syndrome are immediate cursors of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, thus as Chinas obesity rate increases, the well being of the Chinese population is evidently threatened. The increase in obesity rate will lead to maladaptive consequences such as an increase in other illnesses, and these studies provide a strong correlation coefficient with the gr owing of foreign fast food chains.Consequently, the increase of foreign fast food chains has affected everyone living in China. Easy availability to these restaurants and supermarkets reduces Chineses physical activity and labor intensity in both the urban and rural areas (Jackson). This increase number of foreign supermarkets has also resulted in a rise in the average intake of veg oil from 14.8 grams per person in 1989 to 35.1 grams per person in 2004, adding an extra 183 kcal to the populations daily diet (Popkin) (see table 1). In table 1, the availability for consumption of total calories has been going upslope since the 1961 and has no inclination of slowing down. Thus, these changes result in an increase in Chinese adults consumption on high-fat which rosebush from 33 percent to 60.8 percent in urban areas and 13.5 percent to 29.3 percent in rural areas (Mendez). flurry 1 Regional Trends in availability for Consumption of Total Calories, 1961-2000 germ Misra, Anoop and Lo kesh Khurana. Obesity and the Metabolic Syndrome in exploitation Countries. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 2008. Web. 8 November 2011.By switching from Chinese traditional diet to a Western diet, Chinese are consuming goods that are a good deal higher in calories. In a Chinese traditional family, a dinner often included a few dishes of vegetables, a few dishes of meat (normally less than the number of vegetable dishes), a soup, and lastly a bowl of rice for each family member. One or two of the family members saucily cooked all of the food. This kind of traditional dinner included all components of a healthy meal for a well-balanced diet.For centuries, the only beverages Chinese consumed were tea, weewee, and pap milk after birth. Because water has no calories, the human body did not evolve to reduce food intake to compensate for beverage consumption, thus, adding sugar into new beverages will increase the caloric intake of an individual. (Popkin) Table 2 displays the short history of caloric beverage for humans. From breast milk, water consumption, the human as evolved to consume soda, coffee, juice, liquor and other beverages that contain sugar. Thereby, when people consume any beverage other than water, their total calorie consumption increase (Popkin).Table 2 Remarkably Short History for thermic Beverages Might the Absence of Compensation Relate to This Historical Revolution?Source Popkin, Barry M. The World is Fat. The World is Fat (2008) n. pag. Web. 8 December 2011. The increase in availability of foreign food restaurants has led to a significant decrease of home-prepared food according to Popkin, an obvious shift in home-prepared food and home-based meals to ready-to eat meals, often consumed away from home. With this consumption, Chinese are spending less time with their family members and more time outside of their homes. Even though families may eat out at a fast food restaurant together, as the food is served fast,, the social time that an individual spend with his family is still decreased.It is true that food globalization has presented positive effects on Chinese culture, such as the bringing a diverse of cuisines into China, satisfying the Chineses curiosity, the increase in their pace of life and the step of taking Chinese a leap forward into the understanding of the outside world. However, the negative consequences, such as the increase in health risks, and the diminishment of traditional culture that come together with food globalization are inevitable and are worth much more of the attention. These negative consequences may not search worthwhile at this moment but when they do become serious problems, it will be too late to ameliorate. The question that is left for everyone to confer is that do a higher standard of living, a higher pace of life worth the sacrifice?Work CitedDale, Wen. The steady Food impact. China Copes with Globalization (2005) n. pag. Web 14 November 2011.Jackson, Peter. Local Consumption Culture s in a Globalizing World. Royal Geographical Society (2004) n. pag. Web. 13 November 2011.Levine, James A. Obesity in China Causes and Solutions. Chinese Medical Journal (2007) n. pag. Web. 13 November 2011.Mendez, A. Michelle and M. Popkin. Globalization, Urbanization and Nutritional Change In the underdeveloped World. Globalization of Food Systems in Developing Countries Impact on Food credential and Nutrition (2004) n. pag. Web. 13 November2011.Popkin, Barry M. The World is Fat. The World is Fat (2008) n. pag. Web. 13 November 2011.Watson, L. James.Chinas Big Mac Attack. Foreign Affairs (2000) n. pag. Web. 12 November 2011.Wong, Seanon. Whats In A Dumpling. University of Chicago (2006) n. pag. Web. 13 November 2011Wu, Yangfeng. arduous and obesity in China. BMJ (2006) n. pag. Web. 13 November 2011.Tan, Cheryn. Curry Origins and History. Suite101, 2009. Web. 13 November 2011.Shah, Riddhi. The Secret to the Immortality of McDonalds Food. Salon, 2010. Web. 13 November 2011.Andre w, John. Surprise Ingredients in Fast Food. Natural New, 2010. Web. 13 November 2011.Misra, Anoop and Lokesh Khurana. Obesity and the Metabolic Syndrome in DevelopingCountries. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 2008. Web. 13 November 2011.