Food is the main energy supply for growth, movement and repairing the body. From birth, living things start growing, gaining weight and changing. (BBC, 2013)
But what happens when we challenge our bodies into eating large quantities of food or even the food that our bodies/taste-buds disagree with? This experiment is not only physically demanding its experimenting with the concept of ‘mind over matter’. Pushing our bodies until we physically cannot eat anymore, this may be shown through gagging, being sick or to the point where we cannot physically eat anymore.
Our initial was to experiment with was foods we didn’t like. This involved foods such as sardines, soup, tomatoes, bananas (these things were things which each individual brought to the experiment) We started with putting foods out on a table, non of the foods weren’t particularly presented in the way you would usually eat them, this made me question the effect in which the presentation of the food effects us individually. A item of food I brought to the experimental was soup which was in a tin this was then poured into a bowl in front of us and the sound which it made being poured in a bowl, was quite deafening, which heightened the effect of the experimental making it an intimate experience for myself. The use of hearing the food, crunching, slopping, popping, chewing draws people to watch and engage with that particular food, which is something we are looking at to explore in our future experimental.
Once we had established the different types of food, all of us waited nervously awaiting to see if we would get the food which we didn’t like. This particular part of the experimental was challenging as we were anticipating what was to come, not knowing the unknown was a big part of this experimental. A member of third year drama assisted us in our experimental, who made the decision to what each of us should eat, and this was to experiment with the audience and our interaction with one another. The use of having assistance allowed us to not have any influence in picking foods that people like or dislike. The highlight of this experimental for all of us was to challenge our bodies to eat sardines. This personally was very challenging as I was nearly sick, this concept of pushing my body to eat something that I do not enjoy and necessary created a response. Although the concept of this experimental was not to be sick, but to push ourselves the awfulness of this experimental creates impact when something bad is happening. Most people associate food as pleasure, something we enjoy doing and when someone is not enjoying or reacting in a way that doesn’t seem the ‘norm’ people tend to be interested and engage with the content, how much is too much?
Work Cited
-BBC – Learning Zone Class Clips – Why do we need to eat? – Science Video. 2013. BBC – Learning Zone Class Clips – Why do we need to eat? – Science Video. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/why-do-we-need-to-eat/2288.html. [Accessed 22 October 2013].