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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... societies, throughout history and prehistory the problem has been too much rather than too little fiber. Until the twentieth century, fiber was always the easiest and cheapest food element to acquire, and its absence from animal foods ...
... societies which consume large quantities of cholesterol and animal fats have higher mortality rates from heart attacks. Also, as shown by several studies, lowering cholesterol levels lowers the risk of coronary heart disease. In the ...
... societies to do— or, as the Senate's Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs put it, the “prudent thing” to do—is to cut back on cholesterol and animal fat consumption. But we must maintain a distinction between prudently cutting ...
Riddles of Food and Culture Marvin Harris. affluent societies, we must not lose sight of the fact that no one knows what will happen if we drastically reduce the amount of dietary cholesterol for the entire population starting in ...
... societies is that people are living longer. This is not to say that heart disease and cancer are caused by old age or are in some sense inevitable, but that the effects of all the risk factors—dietary and nondietary— take a long time to ...
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 |