#4 Discovering new culture (and ourselves) by food Lately I’ve been studying food through social sciences. I’ve learned many interesting facts and it helped me to understand our relationship with food. As a dietitian, you really need to fully understand the person that comes to you for advice. You cannot say to a French person that he needs to stop eating cheese. You’ll touch his identity as a French person. Claude Fischler, French sociologist, explained it by his concept « the principle of incorporation » . Indeed, food is the only things (and the medicine) that is incorporating to our body and deeply in our soul. Think about the food’s restrictions on multiple religion, it shows the power of food to change or maintain the identity of someone. In some tribes or in our modern society, when you eat the meat of another animal, you take his strength and abilities. Your food contains a story and many symbols. Personally, one of the things that I enjoy the most when I am travelling is the culinary culture and the food of the country. You can see the different habits of eating, smell and taste new flavours. I love that. But I can understand that it might stress out some person and you might go to the same restaurants as there are in your country. For example, I’ve travelled with a friend and she was really afraid of eating new food. She would prefer eating at McDonald because they served the same menu with the same ingredient as there are in our country. And you, what kind of foodie are you ? Thanks a lot for your correction :)