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Among Latinos of Mexican Descent Contrary to common belief, Latinos living in the United States comprise a heterogeneous population with diverse cultural backgrounds. The last U.S. Population Census identified the geographic origin of the 22.4 million Latinos as follows: 63% Mexican, 12% Puerto Rican, 12% Central and South American, 5% Cuban, and 8% an unidentified country.1 While Spanish is the common language to most Latinos, other cultural characteristics, particularly food practices, are unique to specific countries and even specific regions within a country. Often the same food is consumed in many countries, but the preparation methods and integration of foods into the meal pattern vary from one country to another. For example, while beans are consumed in most Latin American countries, refried beans are consumed mostly in Mexico. The native populations of Latin America have made significant contributions to the world food supply. For example, peanuts and potatoes domesticated in the Andes of Peru became part of the diet for people in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa. Corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, and cocoa, domesticated in Central Mexico, are consumed in most of the countries of the world.2,3 In Mexico, the Spanish conquistadors were amazed by the diversity of foods and food preparations consumed by the Aztecs.4 Contemporary diets in Latin American countries reflect, to different degrees, indigenous foods domesticated by native populations as well as dietary practices introduced from Europe and, to a lesser extent, from other continents. While indigenous foods (i.e., corn and beans) have a strong presence in the diet of Mexico and Central America, these are limited in the southern countries of Latin America such as Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. In these countries, where European immigration was not only diverse but large in proportion to the native population, the diet reflects Italian, Spanish, French, and German influences. In Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean countries, African dietary practices enriched the native and European dietary heritage. More recently, food processing technologies adopted from the United States have increasingly introduced a new dimension to current Latin American diets. Canned, dried, packaged, frozen and other forms of processed
foods have become part of the food supply in supermarkets in
urban areas. The diet of Latinos living in the United States
is influenced by the dietary traditions of individual countries,
availability of native foods in U.S. food stores, and new dietary
practices adopted in the United States. Length of residency of
Latinos in the United States also affects dietary acculturation.5,6
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