Apparently, popular culture has greatly influenced our eating habits alongside with tastes in art and esthetic perception. The culture of eating in the postmodern world has never been lopsided – there are various approaches towards eating practices which aim to satisfy certain human needs. However, with the influence of the mass media these points of view have transformed into something close to ideologies. People tend to put their own dietary habits as more important than those of their peers and anticipate individuals with different preferences in food to suffer either from heart disease or from guilt for murdering innocent animals.
Today, consumption of fast food and nutritionism, can be treated as two biggest eating ideologies. People who appreciate either of these practices make up a social controversy and dilemma: we eat either to improve our health or to enjoy the meal. To start with nutritionists, these people treat their food as a collection of nutrients. Doing grocery shopping, they can endlessly study the content marked on the package and consider whether this food is healthy enough to consume. Cholesterol is an enemy, and red meat is not a good choice either for them.
Followers of the fast food ideology look at their healthy eating peers with incomprehension at least. For them, meals devoid of species and flavors are as useless as a warm coat in summer. No matter how healthy the food is if it has no excellent taste qualities like, for instance, roasted meat does. Therefore, eating practices in popular culture are designed to satisfy only a certain social group. The comprehensive multicultural cuisine which will be able to unite healthy eaters and followers of fast food remains at the stage of development yet.