Food and Nutrition: Customs and culture

264 Pages·1995·10.352 MB·English

by  Paul Fieldhouse (auth.)

Food and Nutrition
Food and Nutrition
Customs and culture
Second edition
Paul Fieldhouse
Health Promotion Specialist
Manitoba Ministry of Health
Canada
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Firstedition 1985
Reprinted 1990, 1992 and 1993
Second edition 1995
© 1985, 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Chapman & Hall in 1995
Typeset in 10/12pt Palatine by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
ISBN 978-1-56593-339-2 ISBN 978-1-4899-3256-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-3256-3
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Biocultural perspectives on nutrition 1
Food and culture 1
Food habit research 17
A food selection paradigm 25
Summary 27
Further reading 28
Discussion questions 28
2 Food ideology 30
Ethnocentrism 31
Cultural relativism 32
Food categorization 32
Summary 48
Further reading 49
Discussion questions 49
3 Cuisine 51
The food exchange 51
Cuisine 52
Foods chosen for use 53
Meal patterns 63
Methods of preparation 66
Recipe repertoires 69
Summary 75
Further reading 76
Discussion questions 77
4 Social functions of food 78
Prestige and status 79
Food, friendship and communication 83
Food gifts and sharing 88
Feasts and festivals 93
vi Contents
Rituals and sacrifice 100
Summary 104
Further reading 104
Discussion questions 105
5 Food and gender 106
Sexual division of labour 106
Food~getting 109
Food preparation 111
Cooking 113
Food serving 115
Food consumption 116
Summary 117
Further reading 118
Discussion questions 118
6 Religion 120
The function of religious food practices 120
The nature of religious food practices 123
Origins of religious food practices 125
The changing nature of religious food practices 128
Food beliefs and practices in world religions 129
Summary 147
Further reading 148
Discussion questions 148
7 Morals, ethics, cultism and quackery 150
Morals and ethics 150
Food reform, cults and quackery 155
Summary 163
Further reading 163
Discussion questions 164
8 Myths, taboos and superstitions 165
Food and magic 165
Prohibitions and taboos 167
Food, sex and symbolism 174
Taboos -.two examples 175
Summary 182
Further reading 182
Discussion questions 183
9 Psychological aspects of food choice 184
Food and emotions 185
Weight disturbances 188
Contents vii
Food and psychological security 191
Food preferences 194
Biology and culture in taste development 198
Food aversions and cravings 199
Summary 203
Further reading 204
Discussion questions 205
10 Food for the masses 206
Fast food-the burger culture 206
Ekiben: Japanese railway food 215
Fly me -l'm hungry 223
Summary 232
Further reading 233
Discussion questions 233
References 234
Index 249
Preface
As someone who was trained in the clinical sdentific tradition it took me
several years to start to appreciate that food was more than a collection of
nutrients, and that most people did not make their choices of what to eat
on the biologically rational basis of nutritional composition. This realiza
tion helped tobring me to an understanding of why people didn't always
eat what (I believed) was good for them, and why the patients I had seen
in hospital as often as not had failed to follow the dietary advice I had so
confidently given.
When I entered the field of health education I quickly discovered the
farnaus World Health Organization definition of health as being a state of
complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the
absence of disease. Health was a triangle - and I had been guilty of virtu
ally ignoring two sides of that triangle. As I became involved in practical
nutrition education initiatives the deficiencies of an approach based on
giving information about nutrition and physical health became more and
more apparent. The children whom I saw in schools knew exactly what to
say when asked to describe a nutritious diet: they could recite the food
guide and list rich sources of vitamins and minerals; but none of this
intellectual knowledge was reflected in their own actual eating habits. Yet
nutrition education continued to focus on rote learning of nutrition infor
mation and food values. The situation in higher education did not seem
to be much different. The curriculum focused on physiological and
biochemical aspects of nutrition, while acknowledging only peripherally
if at all-the non-biological meanings of food. This, I think, was a result of
a pervading medical model of nutrition which was disease prevention
rather than health promotion-oriented. Within this context it should not
perhaps have been surprising that courses in sociology and psychology
were seen by many students as being largely irrelevant.
When I went to teach in Canada, a country where multiculturalism
flourishes, the importance of comprehending social meanings of food and
food-related behaviours was driven harne even more forceably. In Britain
there had been some recent interest in developing nutrition education
materials suitable for use with Asian groups-a recognition of the obvious
cultural differences which existed in food patterns and preferences. In
Preface
X
Canada I had, in one dass, students whose parents came from Germany,
the Ukraine, Iceland, Malaya, Nigeria, Scotland, Norway, the USA ... the
list seemed endless. Although the majority of these students were
'Canadians' they had grown up with quite different ideas of what consti
tuted normal eating habits, what foods were acceptable on what occa
sions, what foods represented security, love, hospitality ... and so on. I
was fortunate to be able to teach a course which dealt solely with the
diversity of ethnic food habits and the cultural basis of food choice. It was
from that experience that the idea for this book emerged, in which I have
tried to cover a broad range of topics in sufficient detail to provide a basic
appredation of the non-biological reasons for food choice. If, as nutrition
ists, we gain only a small understanding of the role of food in society, we
may be better able to put into perspective our own concerns for the meta
bolic adequacy of diets.
Human beings the world over share a common need to meet certain
fundamental conditions for survival. One of these needs is the securing of
an adequate diet which will provide energy and the various nutrients
necessary for metabolic functioning. While the fact of this commonality
may be so obvious as to hardly merit comment, it gives rise to an equally
true but less readily appredated observation. The range of human nutri
tional requirements is fairly rtarrow, but the ways in which these similar
requirements are met are hugely diverse. Vastly differing dietary
patterns, utilising thousands of different foodstuffs and combinations of
foodstuffs are capable of achieving the sarne end - that of survival. It is
also apparent that the body is able to call upon certain compensatory
mechanisms to ensure short-term survival when nutritional needs are not
being met. Biological adaptations have been described which act to
conserve predous energy and body nutrient stores during periods of fast
ing or starvation; similarly, metabolic adjustments help to ensure success
ful outcome to pregnancy even where the mother is not optimally
nourished. These are biological mechanisms; there are also culturally
learnt adaptations designed to enhance survival prospects under adverse
circumstances. Techniques of delaying or displacing hunger, for exarnple,
are important in societies where food shortages are common occurences.
The variety of substances which are consumed as food by various
peoples of the world is truly remarkable; though for any given cultural ·
group the list of acceptable foodstuffs is usually severely curtailed. The
traditional Inuit diet consisted almost entirely of meat and fish; in many
developing countries today, a single type of grain forrns the bulk of what
is eaten every day. In contrast, some North American Indian tribes tradi
tionally ate over a hundred kinds of seeds, roots and nuts. In Europe and
North America, meat comes mostly from beef, pork, larnb and chicken;
but for the Dusan of Northern Borneo snake, gibbon, anteater, mouse and
rat, are all acceptable protein sources. South American Indians eat
monkeys, iguanas, grubs, bees and head lice, while the Aborigines of
Preface xi
Australasia relish insects. Fluids too come in a variety of forms: water,
fruit juices, milk and blood; tea, coffee, cocoa, beer and wine. Non-food
substances are regularly consumed; clay-eating practices among
Mississippi Blacks: rotted wood consumption by the Vedda of Sri Lanka:
pebble eating by the Guiana of South America -are examples. Sometimes
humans learn to consume and to prefer substances which are intrinsically
unpalatable. Coffee and chilli are flavours which have become widely
desired despite the bitter and burning sensations they evoke. Rotted food
is appreciated by the Dusan of Northern Borneo, who allow meat to spoil
to liquefaction before consuming it with rice. The Vietnamese create
sauces from putrified materials; sophisticated Europeans hang game birds
until they are 'ripe'.
While the task of delineating 'what is eaten' is a far from simple one it
is as nothing compared with addressing the question of 'why is it eaten?'.
Food has always been much more than a source of body nourishment; it
has played a major part in the social life, both religious and secular, of
human groups. This book is intended to be a modest window into the
world of food and culture. In gathering material and ideas, I was faced
with an enormaus range of potential topics and a bewilderingly array of
sources from a wide cross-section of academic disciplines and popular
publications. The selections I have made are therefore necessarily
personal and somewhat arbitrary, though I have tried to illustrate what I
see as major themes.
The second edition attempts to do three things:
• Elaborate and refine some of the material in the first edition, as a result
of further reflections and in the light of more recent research and new
information.
• Add new material and expand or re-organize existing material.
Religion has been accorded a chapter of its own. There is a new
chapter on 'Mass feeding' which examines aspects of food and popular
culture, with special features on Japanese railway food, and the sub
culture of airline food. There is also a new chapter on gender issues
and food. Elsewhere, new material is introduced on a variety of topics
including: the legacy of the Columbian food exchange; the place of
wild foods in the diet; festivals; and recipe repertoires.
• Be more accessible and useful to students and teachers, through a new
format which includes special features, discussion questions, reading
guides and illustrations. ·
A note to nutrition educators
Since the publication of the first edition of this book there have been a
nurober of landmark events in the field of health and health promotion,
charting the way to a 'new public health'. The Ottawa Charter for Health