The strong symbolic, emotional, and cultural meanings of food come to life in the form of food preferences. We choose foods that, based on our cultural back ground and other learning experiences, give us pleasure. Foods give us pleasure when they relieve our hunger pains, delight our taste buds, or provide comfort and a sense of security. We find foods pleasurable when they outwardly demonstrate our superior intelligence, our commitment to total fitness, or our pride our ethnic heritage. We reject foods that bring us discomfort, guilt, and unpleasant memories and those that run contrary to our values and beliefs