Food Definitions and Taboos

Food vs. non-food
- classification is based on more than edibility (whether a person can ingest the substance)
- one culture's delicacy may be another's abomination
- manioc/tapioca/cassava - starchy tuber, low fat; leaves considered a delicacy in Indonesia but the vegetable is regarded as a poor man's food in other places, and in S. America (where it was first cultivated) it is not even thought to be edible

Disgust - word originated from term meaning to empty the digestive tracts
- a concept learned
- ideas of what is disgusting change over time
- a toddler will have no food preferences but will become picky within a few years if they have not been introduced to a wide range of food
- organs of animals as meat has become increasingly unpopular in the last few decades
- in Western cuisine meat tends to be cooked in savoury dishes but may be complemented by fruit in Middle Eastern foods

Food avoidances - difficult to explain/reason
- some may be based on sanitation and toxicity
- natives of Tazmania were very shocked to find that European explorers would eat fish
- archaeologists found that there had been outbreaks of fish poison due to a change in the fishes' diet that caused them to produce toxins; so fish was avoided and the reasons for doing so had been forgotten within a few generations because it was so ingrained
- some may be explained by symbolic logic systems - Mary Douglas
- to the Ulu Trengganu in Malaysia, foods that are bisa will enhance underlying problems
- the list of such fish is far longer than that of the fish the people would eat, but further inspection reveals that the avoided fish are brightly coloured or spiked to ward off predators while there is greater abundance of the safe fish (also making them easier to catch)

Humoral classifications
- derives from Greek and Arabic medicinal conceptions to do with balance of fluids and properties of the body: hot and cold dichotomy, and proscriptions depend on bodily states
- Holly Matthews, research in Latin America: if a food eaten by a person suffering from fever cures them it would be classified as a cold food, but this may not work for everyone
- the guidelines are not expected to be followed by everyone: when healthy and well they may not be watched as closely as person's already unbalanced and do not want their condition to worsen

Food taboos - failure to adhere to these may lead to a punishment as severe as ostracism
- kindness to particular animals, perhaps to allow populations to thrive or case of cattle's sacred status
- untrue that some dietary laws prohibit the eating of pigs because they were difficult to raise in the arid Middle East where the laws originated because neighbouring Christian communities were successful at raising pigs; instead it is because they do not fit into categories since they are cloven-hoofed but do not chew cud as other cloven-hoofed mammals do

Cannibalism
Survival
- for example, as illustrated by the film Alive of a plane crash in the Andes and people were stranded with limited resources, so eventually they had to eat those that did not survive

Autocannibalism - eating parts of yourself
- not strictly whole parts, e.g. limbs, but includes chewing on hair and eating bogies
- eating the placenta came about with home birth movement: most of the followers of this movement were vegetarians and did not want to see this meat go to waste after fulfilling its purpose
- during childbirth the mother may lost lots of blood, so eating this iron-rich substance may aid her recovery

Psychopathological - documented cases of individuals' activities
- a man advertised an invitation for people to be eaten for dinner

Innocent - being unaware of eating humans
- for example, the fillings of the pies in Sweeney Todd

Endocannibalism - eating people within your own group
- for example, to allow the people to remain together even after death

Exocannibalism - getting people from outside your group specifically to eat
- Errans (1979), institutional cannibalism made false and was based on untrustable sources
- perhaps a societal custome that is not necessarily followed by all members
- malicious rumours (exaggerated and extended to far flung societies) to justify colonialism and other horrid acts: allowing people to act against them
- eating killed enemies as a sign of disrespect: likening them to animals

Windigo (native North American) myth
- people that develop a taste for human flesh that is insatiable to the extent that they may chew their lips  in hope of satisfying the desperate need

Kuru - degenerative neurological disorder = brain disease
- epidemic in PNG
- tended to effect women
- gastro-politics of funeral ritual endocannibalism where women would get the brain where the prion was effected