Consuming the Inedible : : Neglected Dimensions of Food Choice / / ed. by Jeremy M. MacClancy, Jeya Henry, Helen Macbeth.

• MitwirkendeR: Black, Rachel,; Blum, Paul,; Cantarero, Luis,; Collinson, Paul,; Deraga, Daria,; Fernández, Rodolfo,; González Turmo, Isabel,; Grivetti, Louis E.,; Henry, Jeya,; Hladik, Claude Marcel,; Hooda, Peter,; Hubbard, Peter,; Jesús Portalatín, María,; Krief, Sabrina,; MacClancy, Jeremy,; Macbeth, Helen,; Matalas, Antonia-Leda,; Medina, F. Xavier,; Messer, Ellen,; Prasad, Ananda S.,; Schiefenhövel, Wulf,; Strungaru, Carmen,; Tena, Martín,; Young, Sera L.,; Ávila, Ricardo,
• HerausgeberIn: Henry, Jeya,; MacClancy, Jeremy M.,; Macbeth, Helen,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2007]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Language: English
• Series: Anthropology of Food Nutrition ; 6
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (258 p.)

Everyday, millions of people eat earth, clay, nasal mucus, and similar substances. Yet food practices like these are strikingly understudied in a sustained, interdisciplinary manner. This book aims to correct this neglect. Contributors, utilizing anthropological, nutritional, biochemical, psychological and health-related perspectives, examine in a rigorously comparative manner the consumption of foods conventionally regarded as inedible by most Westerners. This book is both timely and significant because nutritionists and health care professionals are seldom aware of anthropological information on these food practices, and vice versa. Ranging across diversity of disciplines Consuming the Inedible surveys scientific and local views about the consequences - biological, mineral, social or spiritual - of these food practices, and probes to what extent we can generalize about them.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF FIGURES -- LIST OF TABLES -- PREFACE -- LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS -- INTRODUCTION CONSIDERING THE INEDIBLE, CONSUMING THE INEFFABLE -- 1. EVIDENCE FOR THE CONSUMPTION OF THE INEDIBLE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE AND WHY? -- 2. CONSUMING THE INEDIBLE: PICA BEHAVIOUR -- 3. THE CONCEPTS OF FOOD AND NON-FOOD PERSPECTIVES FROM SPAIN -- 4. FOOD DEFINITIONS AND BOUNDARIES EATING CONSTRAINTS AND HUMAN IDENTITIES -- 5. A VILE HABIT? THE POTENTIAL BIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF GEOPHAGIA, WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION TO IRON -- 6. THE DISCOVERY OF HUMAN ZINC DEFICIENCY A REFLECTIVE JOURNEY BACK IN TIME -- 7. GEOPHAGIA AND HUMAN NUTRITION -- 8. CONSUMPTION OF MATERIALS WITH LOW NUTRITIONAL VALUE AND BIOACTIVE PROPERTIES NON-HUMAN PRIMATES VS HUMANS -- 9. LIME AS THE KEY ELEMENT A ‘NON-FOOD’ IN FOOD FOR SUBSISTENCE -- 10. SALT AS A ‘NON-FOOD’ TO WHAT EXTENT DO GUSTATORY PERCEPTIONS DETERMINE NON-FOOD VS FOOD CHOICES? -- 11. NON-FOOD FOOD DURING FAMINE THE ATHENS FAMINE SURVIVOR PROJECT -- 12. EATING GARBAGE SOCIALLY MARGINAL FOOD PROVISIONING PRACTICES -- 13. EATING CAT IN THE NORTH OF SPAIN IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY -- 14. INSECTS: FORGOTTEN AND REDISCOVERED AS FOOD ENTOMOPHAGY AMONG THE EIPO, HIGHLANDS OF WEST NEW GUINEA, AND IN OTHER TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES -- 15. EATING SNOT SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE BUT COMMON: WHY? -- 16. CANNIBALISM NO MYTH, BUT WHY SO RARE? -- 17. FROM EDIBLE TO INEDIBLE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION, FAMILY SOCIALISATION AND UPBRINGING -- 18. THE USE OF WASTE PRODUCTS IN THE FERMENTATION OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES -- AFTERWORD EARTHY REALISM: GEOPHAGIA IN LITERATURE AND ART -- INDEX