Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and CultureWhy are human food habits so diverse? Why do Americans recoil at the thought of dog meat? Jews and Moslems, pork? Hindus, beef? Why do Asians abhor milk? In Good to Eat, bestselling author Marvin Harris leads readers on an informative detective adventure to solve the world's major food puzzles. He explains the diversity of the world's gastronomic customs, demonstrating that what appear at first glance to be irrational food tastes turn out really to have been shaped by practical, or economic, or political necessity. In addition, his smart and spirited treatment sheds wisdom on such topics as why there has been an explosion in fast food, why history indicates that it's "bad" to eat people but "good" to kill them, and why children universally reject spinach. Good to Eat is more than an intellectual adventure in food for thought. It is a highly readable, scientifically accurate, and fascinating work that demystifies the causes of myriad human cultural differences. |
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Page 168
... find it to be a waste of time to gather palm fruits ; eventually , they would give up eating palm larvae , and if encounter rates with deer and collared peccary rose to a point where stopping to take anything else lowered the overall ...
... find it to be a waste of time to gather palm fruits ; eventually , they would give up eating palm larvae , and if encounter rates with deer and collared peccary rose to a point where stopping to take anything else lowered the overall ...
Page 190
... find pleasure in them , not only in the furs and meat they help provide , but in simply looking at them and boasting to others about how good they are . The denial of useful functions to pets is totally at odds with the evolutionary ...
... find pleasure in them , not only in the furs and meat they help provide , but in simply looking at them and boasting to others about how good they are . The denial of useful functions to pets is totally at odds with the evolutionary ...
Page 233
... find the notion of people eating abhorrent . This leads them to assume ethnocentrically that there must be some great compelling reason for people to do such a horrible thing as to eat human flesh . They fail to see that the real ...
... find the notion of people eating abhorrent . This leads them to assume ethnocentrically that there must be some great compelling reason for people to do such a horrible thing as to eat human flesh . They fail to see that the real ...
Contents
ONE Good to Think or Good to Eat? | 13 |
TWO Meat Hunger | 19 |
THREE The Riddle of the Sacred Cow | 47 |
Copyright | |
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American amount animal foods Aztecs became become beef better body calcium calories camel cannibalism carried cattle CHAPTER consume consumption contain continued cooked costs cultures dead developed diet dingoes disease dogs domesticated drinking eaten efficient enemy entirely Europe European example explanation fact farmers feed fish flesh four give goats grain groups hamburgers Hindu horsemeat horses human hunting important increase Indians insects killing kind lack lactose lactose intolerance land less levels live means meat milk natural never nutritional percent pets plant population pork pounds practice preference Press prevent prisoners problem protection protein raising reason relatives remains result rickets sheep skin slaughter societies species supply taboo things United University vegetables village vitamin warfare women York