Cultural Perspectives On Food And Nutrition

Provides listings and summaries of books on the subject of cultural perspectives on food and nutrition. Books are divided into three broad categories: general, which covers topics like religious dietary habits, cuisines, and customs; educational, which includes materials that can be used to teach and for patient counseling; and research, books that delve deeply into field studies on food habits and nutrition.

Abstract: A biocultural approach to nutrition emphasizes the impact of the social sciences on food intake. Purchasing, preferences and ideology are heavily influenced by social, economic, political, and cultural processes. Food consumption surveys, data collection and analysis (including types of dietary surveys), the interview, statistical methods, and reliability of methods are discussed. Time and cost factors have led to new approaches in dietary assessment such as scalogram analysis, food scores, and quality indices. Widely divergent dietary patterns of Americans are discussed by ethnic group: Puerto Ricans, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians (several tribes), and Asian Americans (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Hawaiians). Food habit modification is complex due to a rigid structure of social values that determine behavior. Nutrition/communication specialists are needed for research activities, mass media, governmental nutrition action programs and mandated nutrition education programs. Ethics of nutrition intervention are an important concern in affecting dietary changes. Each chapter is followed by a lengthy bibliography. (rkm).

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.

In presenting a variety of theoretical and cross-cultural perspectives on pure food, this volume demonstrates similarities and variations in cultural beliefs, behaviours and practices in different societies. These in turn highlight that pure food is a common issue for humanity, whatever the society, whatever the era. As a subject with much contemporary and cross-disciplinary relevance, Pure Food will appeal to students and academics involved in any food-related discipline, to professional practitioners promoting healthier foods and nutrition and to general readers with an interest in food.

Revised for the first time in ten years, the second edition of Nutritional Anthropology: Biocultural Perspectives on Food and Nutrition continues to blend biological and cultural approaches to this dynamic discipline. While this revision maintains the format and philosophy that grounded the first edition, the text has been revamped and revitalized with new and updated readings, sections, introductions, and pedagogical materials that cover current global food trade and persistent problems of hunger in equal measure. Unlike any other book on the market, Nutritional Anthropology fuses issues past and present, local and global, and biological and cultural in order to give students a comprehensive foundation in food and nutrition.

Provides listings and summaries of books on the subject of cultural perspectives on food and nutrition. Books are divided into three broad categories: general, which covers topics like religious dietary habits, cuisines, and customs; educational, which includes materials that can be used to teach and for patient counseling; and research, books that delve deeply into field studies on food habits and nutrition.

There are not many areas that are more rooted in both the biological and social-cultural aspects of humankind than diet and nutrition. Throughout human history nutrition has been shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces, and in turn, access to food and nutrition has altered the course and direction of human societies. Using a biocultural approach, the contributors to this volume investigate the ways in which food is both an essential resource fundamental to human health and an expression of human culture and society. The chapters deal with aspects of diet and human nutrition through space and time and span prehistoric, historic, and contemporary societies spread over various geographical regions, including Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia to highlight how biology and culture are inextricably linked.