The Power of Food: How Culture Shapes What We Eat

Food is medicine gets said so often it has stopped meaning anything. What we rarely say is that food is culture, and culture is doing most of the driving.

In this episode of Illuminating Being, my co-host Dr. Keith Somers, a Pittsburgh pediatrician, and I dug into how family and environment shape what actually lands on our plates. Keith made a point that stuck with me: the food habits we inherit from parents and grandparents form the foundation of our choices, and they run beneath our awareness. What we enjoy, how we cook, even how we think about nutrition, much of it was decided before we were old enough to weigh in.

That is not a problem to fix. It is an inheritance to understand.

We spent time on what makes American food culture strange and wonderful at the same time: generations of immigrant communities have stacked cuisines on top of each other, Mexican next to French next to Uzbeki, and most of us can reach any of it. Sharing food across cultures, at school, at community events, around a family gathering, does something no lecture about vegetables can do. It builds curiosity in kids, stretches their palates, and connects people who might otherwise never sit down together.

The catch is that modern life keeps pulling us away from any of it registering. Fast food, processed meals, and packed schedules make eating something we do while doing something else. Mindful eating is not just a health practice here, it is the difference between a meal and a refuel. Slowing down, noticing flavors, paying attention to the process of preparing and sharing food, that is where the nourishment beyond nutrients lives.

And the practices that get you there can be almost silly in their simplicity. Spin a globe, land a finger, and cook something from that country. Keep a family recipe journal so the dishes that matter do not die with the person who made them. Put kids in front of new foods and old traditions alike. None of this requires a perfect kitchen or a free weekend. It requires intention.

Over years, those small intentional meals become core memories. Food carries the culture forward whether we notice or not. Noticing is the difference.

This week, pick one: spin the globe, or write down one family recipe that only exists in someone's head. Either one puts culture back on the table.

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