ANTHROP 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Tooth Pathology, Avocado, Hookworm Infection
Lecture 8 - Food and Nutrient
Food as Biological Necessity
Six Major Classes of Nutrients
• Macronutrients – carbohydrates, fats, proteins (amino acids)
• Micronutrients – Vitamins, minerals, water
Cultural Aspects of Food
• Food choices are determined by:
o Cultural
o Religious
o Environmental
o Economic
o Personal factors
o Others?
Food and religion/rituals
• Adam and Eve
The Eucharist
Ramadan
Algonquin ‘Feast of the Dead’
Ritual Sacrifice and Cannibalism
Mexico – Day of the dead and feast of the dead
Celebrations, Rites of passage
Food as competition
Food is
• Sustenance and symbol
• Biological and cultural
• Linked to status and power
• Defining & maintaining social relations
Example – Match the eating context with the social meaning
• Home cooked meal by candlelight à A romantic evening
• A cup of coffee à first meeting
• Sunday brunch/Dim sum à A casual get together with
friends/family
• Lunch at Tim Horton’s à A routine meal in an extended
relationship
Modern Food Icons
Eat like our Ancestors
Christina Warinner
Early Food Production
• Earliest evidence from Near East
• Wild grasses – 12,000 BCE
• Domesticated grains – 10,000 BCE
Influences on early food production and diet
• Geography – only certain animals can adapt in some places, same
with plants. We can get fertile soil but drainage, adequate water,
appropriate sun for different species.
• Access to water – vital for growing, we need it too, we recive
things like reliance on wheat where it doesn’t need too much
water, doesn’t grow well in wet lands. Lots of water places – have
a lot of rice. Take advantage of rivers and flooding, to control
water, key to grow things in places where some places didn’t have
a lot of water. Organization is required to manage large scales.
Nile river – has regular moderate flow, Egypt, water rises, spreads
across field, stable systems there.
• Growing conditions – temperature impacts on kind of crops we can
grow, and seasons. Length of growing system is different,
depends on amount of sun. Humidity, etc.
Universals in Human Food Use
• Omnivorous diet – we eat anything, we find ways to eat something
we couldn’t in the past.
• Cooking – we can cook plants to remove toxic, cook to animals to
remove parasites. Cooking methods, all humans use a certain
method, boiling etc.
• Intensive food preparation - We spend more time on preparation
on food VS any other animal. We put herbs on it etc.
• Elaborate systems of food distribution, sharing, and exchange -
• Food prohibitions and preferences in every culture
Food Classification Systems
• People tend to classify foods in different ways, according to their
culture
• Foods can be
o Edible-inedible
o Hot-cold
o Male-female
o Wet-dry
Hot and Cold Classification of Foods in Puerto Rico
Frio (cold)
Fresco (cool)
Caliente (hot)
Avocado
Barley water
Alcohol
Bananas
Bottled milk
Chilli peppers
Coconut
Chicken
Chocolate
Lima beans
Fruits
Coffee
Sugar cane
Honey
Corn meal
White beans
Raisins
Peas
Sugar cane
Salt cod
Kidney beans
• Above table - Not just temperature or spiciness. Talking about
inheritant quality food has. Culturally defined categories, hot and
cold should be balanced in a diet and in environment. A man
worked out in sun all day, so ate less from hot category. Relates to
the Humoral theory of health. Balance is needed.
• Common in Latin America and Asia
• Originally from Greek theory of health (4 humours)
• Health – balance of opposing elements
• Basic idea in Greek, Indian, Chinese, & Arabic medical systems
Food Restrictions
• Food preferences – likes/dislikes
• Food restrictions – periodic denial of certain foods (e.g., pregnant
women). Types of food you don’t eat during lent.
• Food taboos – deliberate avoidance.
Food Taboos
• Food taboo defined: “the deliberate avoidance of a food item for
reasons other than simple dislike from food preferences”
• Pigs - Muslim, Jewish, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians
• Jewish – kosher food
• Cows - Hindu
• Carnivores eaten in few cultures
• Almost universal taboo against eating humans
How Do We Explain Food Taboos?
• A marker of a group; a way of separating your group from others
(identity)
• Protection against diseases (e.g., trichinosis – contract it by
avoiding pork, people have been dying because it, mummy ate
cook undercooked pork and parasites seen in tissue)
• Ecological theories (e.g., Marvin Harris, he acknowledges that pigs
carry parasites, so do many other animals, he compared cultures
that don’t eat pigs (dry areas) to cultures that do consume pig,
humidity, temperature plays a role. Cows – become sacred,
depending on person. He attempted to explain the taboo)
Marvin Harris (1978) India’s Sacred Cow
Document Summary
Six major classes of nutrients: macronutrients carbohydrates, fats, proteins (amino acids, micronutrients vitamins, minerals, water. Mexico day of the dead and feast of the dead. Food is: sustenance and symbol, biological and cultural, linked to status and power, defining & maintaining social relations. Early food production: earliest evidence from near east, wild grasses 12,000 bce, domesticated grains 10,000 bce. Influences on early food production and diet: geography only certain animals can adapt in some places, same with plants. Lots of water places have a lot of rice. Take advantage of rivers and flooding, to control water, key to grow things in places where some places didn"t have a lot of water. Nile river has regular moderate flow, egypt, water rises, spreads across field, stable systems there: growing conditions temperature impacts on kind of crops we can grow, and seasons. Length of growing system is different, depends on amount of sun.