Eat Meat, Repeat: Questioning the Normalization of a Culturally Embedded Food Habit from an Autoethnographic Perspective

Abstract

This thesis examines the question of why members of Western society eat so much meat and why we seem so resistant to change this behavior in light of an increasing amount of scientific evidence that links such behavior with a number of diseases and long-term-illnesses. It also highlights some of the negative impacts an industrialized system of food production has on the environment. This thesis examines how and why meat has been continually imbued with a great deal of symbolic value as it remains associated with notions of wealth, status, prestige, health, dominance, and masculinity. It is written from an autoethnographic perspective in attempt to show the multitude of ways that our food consumption behaviors are culturally determined and often become so routine and internalized that we repeat them almost entirely unconsciously, further embedding them as cultural norms that most often go unquestioned.