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 51
... fact of that history is that cow protection was not always the central fact of Hinduism . The earliest sacred texts of Hinduism - the Rig Veda - celebrate the gods and customs of the Vedas , a cattle and farming people who dominated ...
... fact of that history is that cow protection was not always the central fact of Hinduism . The earliest sacred texts of Hinduism - the Rig Veda - celebrate the gods and customs of the Vedas , a cattle and farming people who dominated ...
Page 110
... fact , as we'll see , beef consumption in the United States substantially surpassed pork consumption for the first time only in the 1950s . The challenge which must be met is not merely why Americans think beef is good to eat but why ...
... fact , as we'll see , beef consumption in the United States substantially surpassed pork consumption for the first time only in the 1950s . The challenge which must be met is not merely why Americans think beef is good to eat but why ...
Page 143
... fact to be kept in mind is that milk itself ( unless enriched ) does not contain significant amounts of vitamin D. Why should it ? It contains lactose , which by itself is capable of substituting for vita- min D in enhancing the ...
... fact to be kept in mind is that milk itself ( unless enriched ) does not contain significant amounts of vitamin D. Why should it ? It contains lactose , which by itself is capable of substituting for vita- min D in enhancing the ...
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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