Food Socialization

The following subsections are named according to the domains of the Pinwheel of FWB in Urban Poverty. In each of them, I called the beginning of the paragraphs according to the issues experienced by the participants, presented in table 4. Throughout the paragraphs, I highlight the coping strategies that urban poor families employ to manage such issues.

She probably does not enjoy cooking currently due to her cooking hardship experiences in childhood.

I actually don't like to cook. Because I realize that, I don't know if it's because I don't have the gift, but when I see that I've been on the stove for three hours, then I get discouraged. I think I spend a lot of time on the stovetop.

Eduarda associates the cooking act with a “gift” in this passage. Doing things with a gift is a pleasure, and she does not find this pleasure in the cooking act. Eduarda has a rushed routine, so she experiences cooking as an obligation instead of leisure and pleasant housework (Daniels et al., 2012). Other participants concurred that they learned to cook as an obligation.

I learned to cook by searching, due to my job [housekeeper]. Because either I cooked or I was unemployed. […] Then, I learned a little more when I was in São Paulo. In my old job, there was a time when they needed me to cook. There, I either cooked, or I was unemployed. Then I searched on YouTube... There is a sister of mine who really likes to cook. I asked her, sent messages, and asked how she did it. She explained to me, and I learned a little. But I'm not that good. And I don't like [to cook].

Geni explains how she learned to cook with YouTube videos and her sister's tips. Similar to Eduarda, Geni had to learn to cook as an obligation: as a housekeeper, she needed to cook for her bosses. Both participants see cooking as a practice that is not a pleasure. It is a job that they had to learn as a necessity.

Respondents embrace cooking only as an obligation to deal with this female responsibility.

This mechanism can be categorized as a giving up coping strategy (Hill & Sharma, 2020) since participants consented to the cook role imposed on them. They acquiesced to cooking as an obligation and no longer sought to change this situation. There is no option, it is something that has to be done, and that is it.

Unlike Eduarda and Geni, some participants experience cooking as a pleasant activity.

Oh, I like to cook. One thing that I'm not lazy about is cooking. I'm lazy about everything... Let's suppose... Today I have to clean the house...

But I'm not lazy to make food. […] Oh, people come from far away looking for my food. It calls attention. (Cintia)

In this passage, Cintia narrates how she likes to cook. She perceives cooking as a pleasure activity, not as an obligation. She even compares cooking with other housework, arguing that cooking is different from cleaning the house because she likes to cook. Similar to Cintia, Marta also narrates how much she likes to cook.

I like to cook. I just don't like it more because my stove is bad, it only has two burners. And it put out the flame by itself. So, when I go to make food, I have to start early. But I like to cook. I've always worked with food. I cooked for almost three hundred... Almost four hundred people. I did it every day from Sunday to Sunday.

Marta describes cooking as a pleasure activity. Even though she worked as a cook in a company and assimilated cooking as an obligation, she also sees it as a pleasure. However, it is difficult for her to cook at home since she does not have the adequate appliances to enjoy the cooking act fully. In this sense, even the participants who consider cooking a pleasure face limitations in practicing their entertainment, given their food insecurity degrees.

Many participants named female householders as “the family cook” since they are the one who has culinary skills. Cintia’s son nominated his mother as the one that prepares the best food in the household.

Interviewer: In general, who cooks in your home?

Cintia’s son: Oh, it’s my mom. The best food in the house. She is very famous as a cook. She is from Bahia, and everyone says that who is from Bahia cooks very well. It’s true, right?

In this passage, Cintia’s son elected his mother as the best cook in the house. He explains that the reason is that Cintia is from Bahia, a Brazilian state popularly known for having one of the best cuisines in the country. Cintia’s son assumes that Cintia's geographic origin influences her way of cooking. Indeed, the cultural background might influence cooking since culinary skills are learned through generations.

These passages demonstrate that Cintia and Marta cope differently with the cooking responsibility: they embrace cooking as a pleasure activity. This coping strategy is categorized as a giving in type (Hill & Sharma, 2020). Instead of seeing cooking as a mere duty, some participants accept their “family cook” conditions and enjoy this housework as a hobby.

Volatility of food insecurity in the neighborhood. Another topic regarding food socialization is reciprocity among the urban poor. Participants who face milder food insecurity degree support families facing more severe degrees of food insecurity. This finding is consistent with previous studies (Kraus et al., 2012; Piff et al., 2010), which demonstrated that people with more resource constraints tend to be more generous and helpful. The logic behind reciprocity in urban poverty is that households with more (even if this “more” is still little) support those in a worse situation. This is not a constant, as food insecurity degrees are very volatile in urban poverty. For instance, a family that helps another one this month can assume the position of being supported further. Cintia describes how she helped another starving family by donating a basic food basket in the following passage.

Oh, I share. If I have only one last can, I’ll share. Another day, I got two [basic food] baskets, and then the pastor called saying that there was an unemployed woman who had three children who were starving.

She asked for me to get a [basic food] basket. I had won two baskets.

So, I took one, sent it to her, and kept one. This one was tiny, right? But a tiny one that can satisfy hunger for two or three days, right? Then I sent. (Cintia)

In this passage, Cintia narrates that she had won two basic food baskets. The baskets were tiny but enough to satisfy hunger for a few days. When the pastor called her asking for a basic food basket to help a single mother in a necessity, she did not hesitate to answer that she could help with a basket. Such a basic food basket was not left; she would need it in a few days. Since she had two baskets, she felt able to help with the other one. Consistent with Vieites et al. (2022), lower-class consumers tend to donate to urgent causes (e.g., starvation) due to their chronic experiences with scarcity. In this sense, even though Cintia was going through difficulties, this single mother was in a worse situation, and she had compassion.

Marta also has compassion for those in a worse situation than her. In the following passage, she laments that she cannot even eat rice anymore but remembers people are in a worse situation.

She narrates that she got worried watching the news that showed a case of a family with a lot of children starvation. They were in a line waiting for food donation (pasta with tomato sauce), but when it was their turn, there was no more pasta, only the tomato sauce.

Because the poor can no longer eat rice. Imagine who has children. We don't have children, and we're kind of worried. We also have days that

we don’t eat. And I see the people there, watching the news. Wow, I cried. The little kids were hungry in a line. The woman with many children, when it was her turn, there was no more the pasta. She only had the tomato sauce. Wow, it's very difficult.

In this passage, Marta demonstrates compassion for those who are hungry (more than she is).

While Marta complains that she cannot even eat rice anymore due to the high prices, she feels compassion for this family on the news. Because Marta experiences a hardship situation, she has even more feelings for those who need more. Her compassion resonates because she is close to such a situation, running the risk of going through the same.

These findings commune with a previous study that found that lower consumers are more committed to egalitarian values and feelings of compassion. More than that, lower consumers are concerned with the welfare of others as a means to adapt to their hostile environments (Piff et al., 2010). Evidence demonstrates that participants use food as a tool of reciprocity: they share food with neighbors, expecting to be helped in the same way further. Thus, using food as a tool of reciprocity is a transcending coping strategy (Hill & Sharma, 2020). I justify this categorization because, through this mechanism, urban poor families leave aside (even for a while) their own constraints to help others in worse (or even similar) situations.

Privilege of the needs of the most vulnerable over the less vulnerable family members. Family members constantly express a sense of protection and concern for one another through food.

This concern is even more significant when parents try to privilege their children’s needs over their ones. For example, Marta narrates a situation in her childhood when her mother put her daughters' needs above all else. She had a hardship childhood permeated by severe food insecurity, with frequent starvation episodes. She and her family depended on food donations to eat. She says that when they received donations, her mother never ate and always gave to her daughters before anything.

My mother used to say: “no, you can eat. I'm not hungry.” But I was the older sister. I understood more than my younger sister, right? So, I knew that my mother didn't want to eat to leave it to us. Then I took [the food]

and said: “if you don't eat, I won't eat.” Then she ate. Because she wanted to leave it to us, that was remarkable in my life.

This passage demonstrates that privileging each other needs can start not only from parents to children but also from children to parents. Although Marta’s mom put her daughters’ needs above all, Marta noticed her mother’s hunger and “blackmailed” her mother: Marta would only eat if her mother ate too. This is a reciprocal concern: the mother cares for her daughter as much as the daughter cares for her mother. The Marta’s family example evidences how food insecurity might occur in different degrees among the same family: Marta’s mom was in a worse situation than Marta since she privileged their daughter’s needs above her own.

Another example is Eduarda’s daughter, that also cares about her mother. In her food diaries, Eduarda narrates that every day her daughter prepares her lunch box (see Table 5) to take to work.

Table 5. Eduarda’s food diary, day 1, lunch.

Day 1: lunch – feijoada (a typical Brazilian recipe with beans and meat), rice, carrot salad, and pear

Like I said, my daughter prepares my lunch box... I make the food, but she goes there and makes my lunch box. Put some fruit. Even though I haven't made it, she finds a way to make the lunch box with a salad, and if she doesn't have the fruit, she puts a yogurt, you got it?

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Eduarda’s daughter cares about her mother’s health and expresses this concern through the lunch box preparation. She insists that her mother eat healthily, so she puts fruit, salad, and other beneficial foods to her mother’s health. This finding demonstrates that children take their parents' attitudes as a mirror: in the same way parents privilege their children’s needs, children also try to meet their parents’ needs.

The following passage is another example that illustrates how children try to influence their parents’ eating. Angela’s adult son tries to influence the family to adopt a healthier diet, accompanying his mother to the supermarket and street fairs.

So as I started to buy very healthy things, they started having to eat healthy things because it was what was in the fridge, you know? So a lot of chicken, a lot of salad too, which I prepare myself, sweet potatoes, potatoes, vegetables too… Even when my mom went to the fair, I went along and kept giving suggestions: don't buy that, buy that, you know?

She can even stop buying things that are not so healthy, right? And opting for other foods that are even healthier.

In this passage, Angela’s son explains how he tries to introduce a healthier diet to the other family members. Despite the financial constraints, he tries to direct the spending to more nutritious food items to encourage his parents to eat better. Besides, Angela’s son also tries to give suggestions during the vegetable purchase, attempting to make his mother choose more nutritious foods.

Indeed, Hamilton & Catterall (2006) found that consumption in poor families revolves around children’s needs. The finding of the present research enlarges Hamilton & Catterall's (2006) conclusion, demonstrating that children's needs influence consumption family and grown-up children’s needs exert this influence too.

These examples suggest that families in urban poverty try to protect each other through food as a coping strategy, especially the parents who privilege children’s needs over their ones. This coping strategy can be categorized as a transcending type (Hill & Sharma, 2020), in which family members surpass their necessities to meet the needs of other family members.

Food stigmatization. Meat consumption in Brazil has a social status component, and people who cannot consume meat might feel socially excluded (Barbosa & Veludo-de-Oliveira, 2022).

To avoid what I call “food stigmatization,” Angela is concerned about her child’s lunch box.

Angela’s son is 25 years old, and she is still concerned about what he takes to eat at work.

My son takes a lunch box [to work]. My husband and me, we didn't have the meat, but for my son, I insist [on putting meat in his lunch box]. […] Because I'm not going to let him take an egg, right? So, I

always buy sausage, hamburgers, or anything else for him to take in the lunch box. Now my husband and I can eat boiled eggs and fried eggs.

No problem. Until we have meat again, you know? (Angela)

This passage demonstrates how parents put their son’s needs above all to prevent stigmatization.

Even though her son is already an adult man, Angela prepares her lunch box every day for him to take to his job. Angela says there is always a need to have meat in his lunch box. Not because her son requires it, but because she insists on that. Although Angela and her husband eat eggs every day, she puts meat in her son’s lunch box. She is afraid of him being ashamed of not having meat in front of his colleagues. This example demonstrates how urban poor families prioritize the socially visible foods (i.e., ingredients of the lunch box) over the food consumed in their home, which configures a parents’ attempt to avoid the stigma associated with their children’s poverty (Hamilton, 2012; Hamilton & Catterall, 2006).

To conclude, avoiding food stigmatization is a coping strategy that urban poor families employ to deal with the stigma associated with socially visible foods. According to the categorization of coping strategy (Hill & Sharma, 2020), this is a transcending coping strategy. This categorization resonates because participants deny their current food insecurity situation, trying to portray a different condition to people from outside the family circle.

Frustration at not meeting children’s needs. Children appeared to be the priority in most households. Consequently, when parents cannot meet their children's needs, it might lead to frustration episodes. Parents raising children in urban poverty face frustrating situations frequently. For example, participants narrate how difficult it is to take their children to the supermarket and not be able to buy the stuff they want to.

Sometimes I go and take her to the supermarket, sometimes she wants something, and I don't have the money to buy it. Wow, I get really upset, you know? Very upset. […] Yesterday, she saw a little clock worth seventeen reais. She went crazy, showing me, pointing at the cashier.

Then I took her and walked with her for her to forget. I had to keep playing with her. But it's bad to go out with a child with little money.

(Cintia)

In this passage, Cintia narrates a situation that she experienced with her granddaughter at the supermarket. She says that her granddaughter saw a little clock (with candies inside) and asked for it. However, Cintia did not have enough money to give this candy to her. Then Cintia had to improvise a coping strategy to get her to forget about the candy. Distracting children’s attention from unreachable items seems an efficient coping strategy to diminish frustration in children and parents. This is a giving in coping strategy (Hill & Sharma, 2020): parents do not deny their lack situation; instead, they assume it and seek to distract their children from this lack condition to diminish frustration.

Geni also narrates frustrating episodes with children in the supermarket and explains her current strategy:

If I go to the supermarket [with my children] and they want something expensive, then I get very upset. So, I'm avoiding going and taking them. Because it's really bad for them to come and ask and we can't give them. Because it is something to eat, right? So, I get very upset. Then I prefer not to take them. We [me and my husband] are older, we understand a little more, right? But they don't. Then I get a little upset.

In this passage, Geni narrates how upsetting is to go to the supermarket with her sons. She says that they frequently ask for foods that she cannot afford. Through this passage, we note that frustration does not occur to the children that do not have their needs met but also to the parents that get upset for not being able to meet their children’s needs. The frustration increases according to the item category children ask for: having children with food needs not met is even more frustrating than children with superfluous needs not met.

In this case, Geni prefers avoiding taking children to the supermarket as a coping strategy for not to go through similar episodes. According to Hill and Sharma's (2020) classification, this is a giving up strategy. Different from Cintia, who tries to distract children’s attention from unreachable items, she gave up on taking her children to the supermarket to avoid this stressful situation.

Difficulties to conciliate all the bills. In addition to meeting their children's needs, parents also need to conciliate them with all family bills, being compelled to make trade-off decisions.

Trade-off thinking is a consequence of scarcity (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2013). Participants

narrate how difficult it is to manage the bills (i.e., water, electricity, telephone, land bills) and family food necessities. Urban poor families often prioritize the food necessities over other bills.

To be honest, I'm not paying bills. There are already two bills overdue from the land. I also have three electricity bills and one water bill. I used to pay all the bills, but eating is the priority right now. Then, one thing or another. Sometimes my husband gets freelancer jobs in the neighborhood, then we go, buy my son’s milk, something for us […]

Then we'll see what he can pay when he receives his salary. (Geni) In this passage, Geni expresses how difficult it is to choose which bills to pay to prioritize food.

Either they eat or pay the bills. It is a hard decision for them because Geni always honors her bills, so for her, it is humiliating. This example demonstrates how making trade-off decisions affect the self of householders in urban poverty.

Similarly, Marta narrates a trade-off decision, where she needs to decide between paying the land bill and having money to eat.

Yeah, it's hard. If I look at my belly, I wouldn't pay [the bills], I would eat, right? But I prefer not to eat three times a day to have money to spare. […] I saw people who were even taken out of the house because they couldn't pay the contract. […] I said to my mother, “Mom, have you ever thought if it had happened to us? We were going under the bridge”. God forbid! I'm terrified of that. So, I'd rather give up anything [to pay the land bill].

We note that sometimes Marta gives up having adequate meals to pay her bills through this passage. Instead of having three meals per day, she has only two meals to spare money for her bills. Specifically, she spares money for the land bill because she is too afraid of being taken from her house if she does not pay the contract. Making trade-off decisions directly affects the food well-being of urban poor families, contributing to food insecurity. Frequently, Marta also has to decide between food items because she does not have money to buy both.

Because sometimes we don't have all the vegetables. Sometimes we have to make our food with just salt and garlic. If you have only garlic, the food is not the same as before. Sometimes you don't even have

garlic. Sometimes my mother has garlic, and I borrow it from her. But when she doesn't have it, neither do I, then it gets difficult. If we can buy meat, then we can't buy vegetables. It’s difficult. You have to give up one thing or another. Either you buy the meat, the garlic, and salt, or the vegetables, and you don't buy the meat. So, if we’re going to buy rice... Either you buy just rice or just beans. But we have to eat beans because there's iron. But sometimes you have to let go of a lot of things.

In this passage, Marta narrates how difficult it is to decide between food items. She says that it is often hard to choose between rice and beans since beans are a great source of iron essential to health. However, sometimes she needs to give up the beans because there is insufficient money.

Making trade-off decisions is a coping strategy that urban poor families employ to manage financial constraints. Fernbach et al. (2015) categorize trade-off decisions as priority planning, in which consumers sacrifice less important goals in the face of more important ones. In other words, they do not give up on the bills; instead, they manage the bills to prioritize what is more important at the moment. I categorize this mechanism as a giving in coping strategy (Hill &

Sharma, 2020). Through making trade-off decisions, urban poor families embrace their current financial challenges and deal with them as a priorities game, where what is at stake is the families' food well-being.