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, best-selling author Marvin Harris leads readers on an informative detective adventure to solve the worlds major food puzzles. He explains the diversity of the worlds gastronomic customs, demonstrating that what appear at first glance to be irrational food tastes turn out really to have been shaped by practical, 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 its 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. |
From inside the book
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... human consumption. In 1981 the people of the Soviet bloc consumed 126 ... human consumption. The trouble with the Soviet agricultural system is that it is ... flesh. Or in terms of protein, it takes four grams of protein in the grains ...
... human foodways. Despite recent findings which link the overconsumption of animal fats and cholesterol to ... flesh, only a tiny minority of cultists, monks, and mystics has ever professed a bias against all foods of animal origin—a bias ...
... human flesh itself contains the highest-quality protein that one can eat. To avoid cannibalistic innuendos, nutritionists conventionally settle for the protein composition of chicken eggs as their reference standard. Taking into account ...
... flesh, we had better take a look at what our hunter-gatherer ancestors were ... flesh our Paleolithic forbears consumed. S. Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner of ... human beings are in essence genetically programmed.” Incidentally, cereal ...
... human consumption. The gods conveniently ate the spiritual portion of the ... flesh consumed in northern India during most of the first millennium B.C. ... human consumption. Dairying can cut these losses by a significant amount. Modern ...
Contents
13 | |
19 | |
47 | |
The Abominable Pig
| 67 |
Hippophagy
| 88 |
Holy Beef USA
| 109 |
Lactophiles and Lactophobes Milk Lovers and Milk Haters
| 130 |
Small Things
| 154 |
Dogs Cats Dingoes and Other Pets
| 175 |
People Eating
| 199 |
Better to Eat
| 235 |
References | 249 |
Bibliography | 258 |
Index | 275 |