mindbodygreen: The Important Reason To Stop Using The Term “Ethnic Foods”

By Maya Feller
January 25, 2023

Language influences our thoughts as well as our perceptions, and it has the ability to evoke feelings. We remember words used to describe people, places, and cultures that are not our own, and this shapes our future reactions.

In the current landscape, language has been weaponized and used to create a divide that reinforces the othering of groups that have historically been marginalized. The use of language that is dehumanizing and othering has become so ingrained and casual that we aren’t always aware of it. This is happening across many parts of society—including in the culinary world.

The problem with the term “ethnic foods.”

Take a stroll down the “ethnic” aisle of the grocery store and you’ll start to see how non-European foods have been simultaneously devalued and exoticized.

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