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Part 1 The Importance of Food
As food became easier to obtain, not all people had to spend their time hunting
and farming. Some were able to learn a craft. Others became merchants. Trading in its
simplest form began, and with it came the development of civilization.
Making Choices About Foods
In the United States, many people are fortunate enough to have a variety of foods
available to them. This requires them to make many choices about foods. They must
decide when and where to eat. They must choose what to eat and how to prepare it.
These choices require some skill in thinking and making decisions.
The Decision-Making Process
You can use a process to make decisions and solve problems about foods, activities,
or any other topics. The decision-making process is a method for thinking about possible
options and outcomes before making a choice. It involves the following series of steps:
1. Identify the problem or decision. This helps you defi ne the specifi c issue you are
considering so you can focus your thoughts. You may want to phrase this step as
a question. A decision about food might be What should I do for lunch?
2. Consider your alternatives. Alternatives are the various options you might
choose. Options for your lunch decision might include making a sandwich,
reheating yesterday’s leftovers, and going out for fast food.
3. Think about how your alternatives relate to your goals. Goals are aims you
try to reach. You have goals that guide your actions in all areas of your life.
You want to be sure the decisions you make are in line with those goals.
Suppose you have a goal to make healthful food choices. One of your other
goals is to avoid wasting food. You might also have a goal to save money.
Think about how your lunch options relate to each of these goals.
4. Determine which alternatives are acceptable. Sometimes, when measuring
your options against your goals, there is only one suitable choice. Other
times, there will be more than one alternative that seems to fi t with your
goals. All three of your lunch options could meet your goal for healthful food,
depending on the specifi c foods you select to prepare or purchase. You can
safely store the leftovers for another day. Therefore, all three of your options
would fi t your goal to avoid wasting food if you eat everything you prepare or
purchase. Both making a sandwich and reheating leftovers would go along
with your goal to save money. However, buying fast food would not. Going
through this step shows you that you have two acceptable alternatives.
5. Choose one alternative. If you have more than one acceptable alternative,
now is the time to decide which one you will choose. Perhaps you do not feel
like taking the effort to prepare a sandwich. In this case, reheating leftovers
may seem like the best choice.
6. Evaluate your decision. Thinking about how happy you are with a decision
can help you make decisions in the future. Perhaps after eating the leftovers,
you realize you do not like eating the same food two days in a row. You deter-
mine making a sandwich would have been worth the extra effort. This evalua-
tion will help you make a more pleasing choice the next time you are deciding
what to do for lunch.