Cross-Cultural Blog

Going around downtown Cairo, we chose to zoom in on Tahrir square, yet what we are about to discuss is found all over Cairo. Within the same neighborhood, within the same street, when choosing to fulfill a very basic necessity; eating, the choices are right there, across from one another, costing one and half pounds for a chopped liver sandwich and fresh juice of your choice-(according to the season as well), in our case it was pomegranate for 3 and a half pounds or if you walk about 5 minutes to Estoril, you can get a mixed grill plate for 60 pounds.

What seems to be alarming is not so much the difference in prices, yet it is the lack of awareness that certain types of food even exist among a certain strata of the society (that in fact represents the majority of it) Those standing around buying a liver sandwich in a lot of cases regard having meats in a meal quite a rare event, let alone be aware of different types of seafood, or perhaps even understand what Chinese, Indian, or Japanese food is. Yet, at the end of the street are those dining in Café Riche, who are very much familiar with and enjoy international cuisine.
However, it does not simply seem to be all about what you can afford to eat therefore, you are aware it exists, it’s the fact that your income sort of declares a certain background, in which you live and don’t have a chance to explore outside or elsewhere. You stick to what you know and what you grew up eating. Specific types of food that are very inexpensive are what you mostly eat. And you don’t even think about what’s being served in the restaurant down the street. Even if you wonder, you never step in, or question. It’s almost like a self imposed mechanism, where you completely block out what you know you can’t afford to have.

Surprisingly still, at the end of the day, regardless of how much money you can afford to spend on food, you find the majority of Egyptians choosing “balady bread” (local bread made in Egypt) over French baguettes.

N.B: Please look at Extended Entry for photos.

Continue reading "Food choices- Sarah Ibrahim and Menna Maged" »

Posted by American University in Cairo at 04:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)

By: Iman El Hofi and Jailan Al Sharif

In Egypt, as in other countries around the world, the extent to which people are educated affects their food choices. The poorer classes in Egypt tend to focus on adding high calorie ingredients within their food such as sugar, oil, butter, and spices. Certain kinds of desserts that are primarily baked during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan are known as katayif and konafa. They contain ingredients such as honey, milk, cream, and cooking butter. The majority of the AUC student population comes from privileged families, which means that their education included learning about the health dangers that junk food could lead to. It is important to note that there are people in the privileged classes who do prefer excessive amounts of the above ingredients. However, it is more widely popular amongst the poorer classes.
Deprivation plays a significant role in the food choices that poor classes make. This is because they receive prolific donations mostly during the month of Ramadan and during Islamic celebrations such as Eid El Adha and Eid El Fitr in comparison to the rest of the year. Therefore, they tend to make the most of these situations by eating to their heart's content. However, education does play just as significant a role as deprivation for not everyone in Egypt is regarded to be in the realm of extreme poverty. There are different levels of poverty just as there are different levels to the middle class and the wealthy class. There are many people who have access to different types of high calorie deserts and regular food throughout the course of the year.
Education is minimal in the field of food and health. However, people's awareness of the dangers of junk food is steadily increasing. Yet, there are those who will add spoonfuls of sugar to their tea or other traditional drinks such as the karkade. Stubbornness from some people can lead to typical responses to health alerts such as: "I only live once so I shall eat what I want and hope for the best as God is with me." This saying means that life is too short. One should not restrain themselves from any pleasures such as in the form of food. Such people who live by these sayings end up with diabetes and other life threatening diseases. Others may focus on adding not sugar but excessive amounts of spices to anything that they eat. They end up suffering from diseases such as hemorrhoids. Even then, their lack of education affects them as they believe that by not changing their eating habits and by only taking their medication, all will work out for them in the end.
As previously stated, educational awareness of the dangers of junk food is increasing amongst the poorer segment of the Egyptian society. However, more effort is required in order to reduce the cases of diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure that many Egyptians suffer from. It is important that the Egyptian government assign doctors to form one-on-one sessions with patients and their families to inform them how they can improve their eating habits. Campaigns are also an important part of alerting the public about leading a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, it is important for Egypt to participate with the global economy in order to reduce high vegetable prices. Right now, fatty foods such as macaroni and rice are cheaper than vegetables or protein foods. The message needs to be clearly sent to the patient that the medication will not always save their health.

Posted by American University in Cairo at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)

There are many pictures that surprised me except few ones like the one about Egyptian family! The pictures that surprised me the most were about families from Chad, United States, Ecuador, Bhutan and Germany. The picture about Chad surprised because of the few amount of food in the picture and the huge difference between the food expenditure of one week between this family ($1.23) and all other families from different countries. The photos of the American families surprised me because they are different from each other in terms of different food types and expenditure although they are in the same country. The picture of the family from Ecuador surprised because their food recipe is Potato soup with cabbage and all their food is mainly vegetables in the picture so how do they survive without food that contains proteins like meat. The picture of the family from Bhutan surprised me way more than the picture of the family of Ecuador as the family from Bhutan also rely mainly of vegetables but they are more in number and their food expenditure in one week is even less than the family of Ecuador by $26.52. I was surprised also by the picture of the family from Germany because of the big amount of food in front of them and there is only one man in the family.

Continue reading "Food and its Problems in Egypt" »

Posted by American University in Cairo at 03:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Aya Aboul Fotouh
Dania Ghoniem
Jailan Al-Sharif
Samantha Devinck
RHET201
Stanford blog project

How much processed food does the population eat?
How much processed food do you have access to?

When I conducted some internet research on the amount of processed foods that the Egyptian population ate, I found out that the results varied depending on the item consumed. For example, the percentage of Egyptians that consume processed vegetables witnesses an increase of 20% each year. Despite this increase, there are still many people struggling to obtain vegetables due to government regulations and policies that affect vegetable prices, which are in many cases for the disadvantage of the Egyptian citizens.

Continue reading "AUC- Egypt Bread Shortages" »

Posted by American University in Cairo at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)

Hello, we are five students from Stanford University collaborating with the American University in Cairo as part of a Cross Cultural Rhetoric (CCR) project. We are writing about the international obesity and malnutrition crises for our class on food science and politics.
Professor Paul Zimmet of the International Diabetes Institute warns that “obesity is no longer a problem limited to America…but has reached the scale of a global epidemic.” In a world with 300 million obese people, how is it possible that over twice that number are malnourished globally? This indicates that it is the allocation of food, rather than the abundance, that is problematic.

Continue reading "From Rolls to Ribs" »

Posted by Stanford Rhetoric of Food, Group Y at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)

This blog was written by a group of five freshmen taking an introductory course with a focus on the rhetoric of food science and politics in the Program of Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University.

As the world population increases exponentially and the economy fluctuates wildly, the global food shortage is fast becoming one of the most terrifying and seemingly insurmountable crises that humanity has ever faced.

Responses and solutions have been proposed on all sides. The international scientific community has begun to focus a great deal of energy on biotechnology to promote greater crop and livestock productivity; governments are looking to cooperate in the development of legislation that will protect both the agriculture industry and the consumers who depend on its products; non-profit organizations are attempting to interact with those directly affected by the food shortage to develop localized solutions in self-sustainability and agricultural and economic independence.

Continue reading "Responding to the Global Food Shortage" »

Posted by Stanford Rhetoric of Food, Group X at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Students: Hanna B, Stewart D, Karen L, Stephanie N

This Cross Cultural Rhetoric blog is a project between Stanford University students in Palo Alto, California, and students at the American University in Cairo to explore varying cultures’ perspectives on world issues.

Specifically, our group is focusing on how awareness of the globalization of food commodities can shed light on the global food crisis. In this entry, we examine how the globalization of the corn industry has specifically affected food availability around the world.

Source: http://climateprogress.org/2008/04/03/corn-hits-a-new-record-6-a-bushel/

Continue reading "Insert [CORNy] Title Here" »

Posted by Stanford Rhetoric of Food, Group X at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

This blog post is by Stanford students in dialogue with students at American University of Cairo for a course in Stanford's Program in Writing and Rhetoric on the subject of food politics and science.

After reviewing various photographs published in the photo essay “What the World Eats” in Time Magazine , we have discovered several discrepancies between the depiction of the typical American diet and in the foods we Stanford students actually consume. We realize that while these photographs may accurately portray the diet of a “typical” American, as students of Stanford University we feel that the two photographs fail to accurately portray the contents of our diets.

Continue reading "What We Really Eat" »

Posted by Stanford Rhetoric of Food, Group C at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBacks (0)

In this blog, we will be examining the effects of climate change on agriculture and the role of GMOs in a societal, political, and scientific context as part of our Food Science and Politics class at Stanford University. We will be corresponding with students at the American University at Cairo through this Cross-Cultural Blog.

Continue reading "Engineering Our Environment" »

Posted by Stanford Rhetoric of Food, Group A at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

As a part of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University, we are coming together to open up a conversation surrounding the current use of food for fuel. This is a complex issue that cannot be simplified by generalization. Therefore we hope to open up a discussion rather than an argument.
Contributing authors: Jackie Klimes, Caitlin Morgan, Hannah Rich and Meghan O'Hara.

Michael Ramirez, Creator's Syndicate

Continue reading "Corn on the Cob or Corn in Your Car" »

Posted by Stanford Rhetoric of Food, Group B at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)