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
Results 6-10 of 66
... consume twelve times as much animal protein as the people at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Even in the United States, people at the top eat 25 percent more meat than those at the bottom. In India, the highest-income groups consume ...
... consume by the amount of meat available. They like to alternate bites of meat with bites of plantains—which are seldom in short supply. This seems to accord well with the nutritional concept of “protein-sparing” diets. If meat is not ...
... consume it only if they took precautions to make sure that the gods were willing to share it with them. All these cultural convergences and recurrences support my theory that animal foods play a special role in the nutritional ...
... consume insects but actively pursue small game. Baboons are especially keen hunters. During a single year of observation in Kenya, Robert Harding saw baboons kill and eat forty-seven small vertebrates including infant gazelles and ...
... consume such foods, the way lions or eagles and other true carnivores are driven to eat meat. There is too much variation in the ratios of plants to animals in the foodways of different cultures to support the idea that we instinctively ...
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 |