Authors

Ellen S. Kim

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Abstract

Questions about racial and ethnic health disparities are major issues in health psychology and medicine. A previous study on health behaviors showed that there are cross-cultural differences among college students at Southern Adventist University. The previous study examined health behavior variables such as exercise, water, nutrition, sleep, smoking, alcohol, seatbelt use, medical examination, and dental examination. As a follow-up, this study represents phase two of the previous study. In the current study, the focus was on nutrition. Even though nutrition is an important aspect of health behaviors, there has not been significant amount of cross-cultural research done on nutrition in terms of food consumption. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between cultural cuisine and nutrition. Ninety-four recipes from two cookbooks, 56 ofwhich are Chinese and 38 of which are French, were analyzed individually and each ingredient was categorized. Results showed that there are indeed cultural differences in nutrition. Results show that French cuisine use more fruits, milk, egg, sugar, soy sauce, alcohol, cheese, butter, cream, and herbs, while Chinese cooking uses more oil, soy sauce, and cornstarch. Findings from this study raise the question of whether people from different cultures have different diets and thus differing health outcomes.

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