African American Soul Food Essay

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Is Soul Food detrimental to African-American's health? Soul food is thought of as soul "healing" and scrumptious, but is this cuisine causing many problems than it creates for followers of this diet? Traditionally soul food is cherished by black residents of the American deep south region, as they created this cuisine and it is strong aspect of their culture and identity. It has manifested into a craze that has made it very detrimental to their health. From fried chicken and black eyed peas this food can be very mouth watering and unhealthy at this same time. Health issues can be unfortunate for staunch followers of this way of eating. Because a significant percentage Africans are on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, they are forced to eat this unhealthy …show more content…
According to Heart.org, “More than 40 percent of non-Hispanic African-American men and women have high blood pressure”(1). Because of the high amounts of sodium present in the soul1 food diet, it causes many problems for this demographic. In addition to these health conditions, is black people lack the physical exercise that could balance out these conditions. With hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol present within black people, this can create a very lethal combination. It is due to the fact that black people are aware of how unhealthy their diet decisions are and they choose not to exercise that gives soul food a very bad reputation. Filmmaker Byron Hurt in his movie Soul Food Junkies blames soul food for killing his father. Bryon who is black and followed the unhealthy soul food growing up until becoming vegetarian argues that his father kept eating and never exercised which eventually led to his death. Hurt also argues that Soul Food is very central to the black family. It is something that black people cherish and love as it is unique to them. It’s their cultural legacy in the United States.

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