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ANTHROPOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET
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Ellen Messer
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California 94305;
Department of Nutrition and Food Science, Massachusetts Insti tute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
INTRODUCTION
tion and biological and cultural factors in the "evolution" of diet. Given the
quantity of literature , this author will leave for other reviewers certain major
topics such as "diet and human evolution" (72) , an update on the comparative
risc and developments of agriculture and herding ( 1 1 5 , 1 46), alcohol (2 1 5a,
3 1 8a) and other quasi-food substances (35) , "time allocation in relation to
nutrient intake" (23 1 a), determinants of breast feeding vs bottle feeding (25 1 ) ,
and cannibalism (80a, 202a).
OVERVIEW
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primary focus rather than an interval in the day's activities, and how in such
contexts, symbolic and emotional values of foods were often used ritually to
mark social status , intervals in time, and culturally important environmental
resources (22, 1 08; see 23 1 , 237). Subsequent ethnographies emphasized the
centrality of the social cooperation in the food quest and food sharing to the
structure and change of human social organization and culture.
In what are probably still our most complete studies of the interrelationships
between food supplies , social organization, and nutrition , British social anthro
pologists working in pre-World War II colonial Africa found that the study of
food and hunger were basic to their understandings of social relationships,
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political life, and changing cultures disrupted by British rule. Richards' (273)
classic study of the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia concluded that the reasons
natives did not work harder (a primary concern for British mining and other
economic interests) was not a question of sloth but of undernutrition . Since men
had been drawn away to labor in the mines , women found it difficult to perform
the heavy clearing tasks traditionally assumed by men , in addition to their own
cultivation and gathering roles . During the period of the year when women
most needed food energy to sustain clearing and planting of fields, food was in
shortest supply. Thus , they were enmeshed in an ongoing cycle of underpro
duction and undernutrition.
As part of her study Richards carefully examined all social relations as they
related to food exchange. She considered the emotional qualities assigned to
different foods-their desirability in terms of taste and digestibility , their
importance in the native ceremonial life, as for instance, the importance of
grains used in beer brewing, and the excitement that accompanied opportunities
to eat meat-as well as people's perceptions of the nutritional qualities and
physiological effects of different staple grains and relishes eaten with them.
(The Bemba seemed to recognize the relationships between low energy intake
and lack of energy to perform work, and consciously conserved energy during
the lean , cold season. They had a concept of the ideal proportion of grain to
relish in the ordinary diet, and some women, when they were too tired to gather
ingredients for relish, might not prepare the grain either, since it was hard to get
the grain down without the lubrication of the relish . ) She also described the
social dimensions of food production, preparation, distribution, and consump
tion , noting how all kinship relations were marked by prescri bed rules for
sharing; and how these obligations would break down in times of dearth, when
people tended to hoard meager supplies. Her reports, collected by selective
observations , interviews , and informant diaries over a rclati vely short period of
time, include general descriptions of gardening, crop successions , and time
allocated to different food production, collecting. and food processing tasks.
Her model for the "food" aspect of culture was also interdisciplinary, as she ,
like other British social anthropologists of this period ( 1 23), employed botan-
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 209
ists, nutritionists, and biochemists to aid them in identifying and assessing the
nutritional values of foods. Her work influenced later studies of the changing
interrelationships between social organization of production and distribution of
food, diet, and nutrition (207, 208, 297, 298, 323) even though such food·
focused studies did not fit the "mainstream" of British social anthropology
(239 ).
In retrospect, this food ethnography remains a model for nutritional anthro·
pologists and others studying the social and nutritional impact of economic
development. A nutritionist designed that specialized dimension of the study.
Meanwhile, Richards' ethnographic component suggests that in lieu of more
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food supply , early feeding experiences, emotions surrounding food, and per
sonality continue to contribute to studies of abstemious or indulgent eating
behaviors, eating disorders, socioculturally desirable body weights and body
images, and the "fit" between biomedical and sociocultural concepts and
evaluations of diet-related health and illness (24). For example, overconsump
tion and obesity among Puerto Ricans living in a mainland environment of
greater plenty have been blamed, in part, on residual fear of hunger, and on
warm emotional bonds traditionally associated with feeding (216). Such cul
tures may tend to see fatness as a sign of health, wealth, and well-being-that
one is well loved and well cared for-and their perceptions of "desirable"
versus "overweight" may differ measurably from Western medical models (57,
70,216,268,307). Alternatively, cultures may put a value on "thin," as where
abstemiousness is viewed as a virtue, and slenderness sainted, such that certain
social categories, such as women and very young children are undernourished
(264). It would be constructive to have more information on how (and how
rapidly) such food ideologies and practices change at individual and cultural
levels as food resources improve .
On these questions, certain anthropologists have suggested that both protein
energy malnutrition (51, 54) and obesity (275) be analyzed as "culture-bound
syndromes" of the biomedical "culture" (336). Although modem physicians
persist in identifying them as "nutritional diseases," with a pathological etiolo
gy (feeding and eating behaviors) leading to harmful weight and health outcom
es, those in "other" cultures may recognize as a pathological syndrome neither
the food-related behaviors, the outcome (over or underweight) , nor , in the case
of protein-energy malnutrition, the process of causation . For "obese" cultures,
it would be valuable to know, in addition, the varying household dynamics as
well as cultural "ideologies" surrounding eating behaviors which contribute to
overweight in some but not all individuals who are culturally predisposed
to abundant food, obesity, and their health implications (28). Alternatively,
at least one anthropologist (205) has suggested using the "double-bind"
communications analysis and behavioral frameworks of Bateson (20) as a
first step in analyzing the household dynamics, and social, cultural, and
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 211
ists , like economists, must keep in mind that people choose foods, not energy
or other nutrients, in their dietary selections. The manner in which these dietary
preferences influence and in some cases enhance caloric returns , nutritional
complementarity , or both are material dimensions that need further explora
tion . More careful records of dietary patterns and nutrient intake over daily and
longer periods of time in particular cultures are necessary . Such studies should
help clarify the biological and cultural parameters and "feedback mechanisms"
between nutritional adequacy or benefit and cultural preferences in human food
selection and the evolution of diet (see essays in 1 6) .
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able food shortages in traditional "foraging" economies. More data are needed
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 215
lines, the evidence on arctic hysteria has not provided clinical or dietary data to
indicate that the individuals labeled pibloktoq were clinically deficient in
calcium or more poorly nourished than their fellows who shared the "same"
diet. Nor has it been demonstrated that those reported to have suffered Windigo
psychosis or those who fed them "corrective" fat-rich foods were responding to
clinical symptoms. The entire "cannibal maniac" psychosis may have been a
hypothetical rather than a nutritional psychological condition ( 2 1 1 ).
The hypoglycemia hypothesis suffers in addition from the general problem
of moving directly from the individual and household level of interaction to the
social level of explanation , and the related problems of proceeding from one
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manioc in Africa had more to do with its agronomic advantages over cereal
grains (it grows on weak soils with a low labor input) and its storability than
with its possible contribution to lowered mortality rates from sickle cell anemic
crises. More detailed studies on manioc toxicity from cyanate are also in order.
given the many sweet and bitter varieties traditionally grown and eaten (e.g.
18). His hypotheses that spices and herbs were important as antioxidants and
pharmacological agents (I72) -ideas which have been suggested by others (9,
10 I, 102)-also remain to be demonstrated with more complete data.
Similarly, in another case of suggested biocultural evolution, e.g. the cultur
al and biological adaptations to lactase deficiency, the various ways in which
cultures have overcome the problem of milk indigestibility-whether by pre
digesting itthrough yogurt or cheese culture or transformation by heat-need to
be more carefully analyzed to substantiate existing biocultural arguments about
the significance of milk intolerance in biological evolution (90-92, 147a, 218a)
In summary, the general points that food processing techniques and food
combinations developed in the past led to cuisines which were nutritionally
advantageous, and that without food processing, foods from onc area are often
inedible or less nutritious in the next, are well taken (172. 173 ,274 , 3 3 7).
However, the complete and accurate specifications of the biological and
cultural parameters to further arguments of "biocultural" evolution or "co
evolution" are lacking in most cases. All suggest additional research is neces
sary into taste and other sensory preferences by which foods are selected and
combined, biological and behavioral consequences of various nutrient intakes,
and the cultural conceptions of each in order to understand the feedback
mechanisms by which foods of superior biological value become esteemed
parts of cultural cuisines.
or for the fat, s ait , or in m any cases, the. festivities that go along with m eat
consumption ( 1 65 , 273). Peopl e also seem to crave the rel ish and spicy
condiments without which they say they have limited appetite for their high
starch diets (273 ) . A ltern atively , certain foods or food combinations are be
l ieved to be necess ary because they partake (and contribute) differential ly in
l ife-giving force ( 1 5 7, 3 3 9) , because they are "cooked" or "meal" versus snack
foods , "juicy" as opposed to "dry , " or sim ply "nutritious " and "vitamin-rich"
(64) . Dimensions of foods , food groups, and their rules for combinations-to
yield a com parative body of data on concepts of "ethnonutrition"-have so far
not been compiled , although most nutrition al studies usually do l ist cultural
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food "stapl es , " "superfoods , " or "key foods " (8, 15 9, 250) and several anthro
pologists h ave tried to identify "health (nutritional) factors" in dietary selection
(76, 76a) . These l atter, however, h av e been constructed by the analysts out of
the data on nutrient intak e-which foods cluster together-rather than lexical
or locally described ethnonutritional concepts .
Negative short-term physiological effects such as allergic reactions m ay ,
correspondingly , form t h e basis of food avoidances ( \ II). Other adverse
physiological reactions culturally encoded as food dislikes may be at l east in
part genetically based , as for example, where lactose intol eranc e h as b een
interpreted to be at the root of milk avoidances in certain cultures (92, 1 47a,
2 1 8a, 30 I ). Nevertheless, the physiological argument still does not explain
why certain l actose-intolerant popUlations , like th e Chinese, do not like cul
tured milk products which they should be abl e to digest.
Final ly , there are other foods that by virtue o f sensory or other cultural
symbolic properties are considered to be d angerous , to produce h arm , and
therefore avoided. Ethnographers hav e noted how n ew foods are c lassifi ed as
"good" or "b ad" for adults, children, women, or some combination of soc i al
c ategories on the basis of their perceiv ed physiological effect-wh ether they
are easily digested or m ak e people sick (64). More generally, foods in m any
cultures are nomin ally considered to be "strengthening" or dangerous as a result
of their origins, h andling, processing, and ultim ately contexts of ingestion
( 1 5 7) . Within these cognitive c ategories, especially where diets are c arefully
regul ated and restricted , individu als of species m ay be situationally c lassified
as "clean" (harml ess) or tabooed (unhealthy) on the basis of circumstantial
evidence. Such sets of rul es seem to be particularly developed in indigenous
low l and South Americ an societies (1 8, 40, 1 5 7, 27 l a) and also in Southeast
Asia ( 1 86 , 209). What is still l ittle understood , however, is how perfectly
innocuous foods come to b e l ab eled as dangerous and so disgusting that they
elicit n ausea and vomiting if accidentally ingested . Sensory and semiotic
approach es to food rules and taboos h av e clev erly analyzed why certain n atural
animal and plant c ategories should be interpreted as "anomalous" and m ade the
222 MESSER
target of special cultural attention , but this does not explain such violent
physiological reactions ( 1 54 , 286). Nor do they explain how people come to
accept and even to savor dangerous foods .
ness , " and "color" are examples of binary or humoral categories which are built
from various elements and used singly or in combination to classify food and
direct food intake in many parts of the world (2, 4 , 5, 2 1 , 1 25 , 203 , 209, 2 1 0 ,
2 2 9 , 242 , 27 l a , 293 ) . Such classifications interrelate a number of different
domains, such as flora , fauna, medicine, health, ritual , and social rel ations,
depending on the culture . Humoral classifications probabl y reach their greatest
elaborations in Asian , particularly Indian and Chinese cultures, where they
form a part of a complex system of medicine and philosophy, but they are
equall y pervasive in some South American lowland cultures where they sort out
and bring together domains of sex , color, symbolic temperature , geography,
and i ntergroup relations (27 1 a) .
More generally, the symbolic meaning and nutritional significance of these
dimensions have been shown to vary according to cultural context as well as
individual inclination to "follow the rules" ( 1 86 , 2 1 7 , 229) . Hot-cold classi
fications , as a case in point, display great variab ility i n how they are conceived
and how they operate in local dietary and health practices in different parts of
the world and within the same culture area. Degrees of shared knowledge or
. agreement on hot-cold, the pervasiveness of the idiom, or its cultural import
ance can vary even within the same cultural communities. In the absence of a
written tradition or authoritative sources , there are often no absolute or author
itative classifications for popular cultures that use hot-cold as a standard to
classify foods , diagnose i l l ness , and maintain or recover health . People seem to
combine inherited knowledge with cause and effect reason i ng from the basic
hot-cold principle of balancing opposites in particular curing contexts. They
evaluate the physiological effects of food and medicines in particular contexts,
and so certify their classifications (and the classificatory procedures) for future
reference. The natural h istories of items, their processing and the conditions
under which they are served, can also affect the hot-cold or other "health"
classifications (I5 7 , 1 86 , 229 , 235).
Nevertheless , hot-cold c lassifications may have little practical value for
determining the majority of foods that people ordinaril y eat. While all members
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 223
by hot-cold beliefs and practices . For those introducing new foods to infants
and children, the perceived hot-cold values (primarily whether, during the
initial trials , the new foods made infants sick) may affect the acceptance of new
foods ( 1 32); although in some contexts, new foods and medicines may be
perceived as "nutritious" and outside of the hot-cold evaluation system
altogether (64, 229) .
Semiotic Studies
Elements of diet have been analyzed alternatively as aspects of a "food code" in
which foods or components of foods--especially their manners of preparation
or transformation or serving--express other aspects of social relations, cultural
identity, and the sexual division of labor. Potential foods classified as "inedi
ble" for everyone , for certain social categories, or for all but certain ritual
contexts have been viewed as separating or contrasting human from nonhuman,
one's own culture from other cultures, pure from impure , complete from
incomplete , or other fundamental distinctions (82-85 , 1 9 1 , 3 1 1 ) . Further
sociocultural selections of foods as preferred or less preferred under ritual or
ordinary circumstances , as good to give to certify friendship or to withhold to
signify enmity or social distance, have been similarly interpreted as cultural
constructions that take into account certain intrinsic qualities of the items ( 8 1 )
that undergo more arbitrary cultural elaborations , and may initiate further
social exchange.
Following Levi-Strauss's ( 1 92, 1 96, 1 97) analyses of food types and trans
formations in South American mythologies, linguistic anthropologists have
explored the "food code" presented in myth and retold in ordinary and ritual
food preparations as a way in which people mark social distinctions , com
plementarities, and transformations. Although the culinary lexicon varies
( 1 95), such analyses explicate why food items and patterns are "good to think"
rather than simply "good to eat . " Eclectic approaches to food symbolism add
that such beliefs and practices may also be ecologically, medically , and
socially sound ( 1 86 , 202). Along these lines, Levi-Strauss pointed out that
224 MESSER
myths may also preserve knowledge of potentially edible though less preferred
biological species in the environment; a corpus of knowledge that can be
referred to in time of dearth for nutritional sustenance ( 1 96) .
Cultures vary i n the extent to which they focus on food as symbol and the
symbolic properties with which they imbue it. While there has been little
cross-cultural comparison on the degree to which cultures elaborate and empha
size the "food code" (see 1 35 for some discussion) , H i ndu food classifications
and rules of food exchange , which elaborate principles of social organization ,
caste hierarchy, relative caste status , and cultural identity, have probably
attracted more attention than the elaborations in other cultures ( 1 7 8 , 1 79) . The
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close association of particular deities with foods and food attributes (7, 1 07 ) ,
and the rigid regulations surrounding a l l aspects o f consumption on the human
leve l , especially those surrounding food exchanges between members of differ
ent castes and different sexes, have prompted ecological , h istorica l , and social
symbolic explanations, as have the background to the banning of beef eating
and the elevation of vegetarianism to privileged status . H istorical origins,
"causes," "function s , " and "consequences" of the sacred cow are in dispute , as
are those of h istorical bans on pig-eating in other cultures (79) , although in each
case, a combination of "material" and "symbolic" interests seem to be in
volved. While other cultures use food to mark or build relative prestige and
social status , the ways in which castes manipulate food transactions to improve
their relative status (2 1 5) and the emotions with which "polluting" (downward
ly mobile) foods are charged, set H indus apart. Fasting for spiritual merit and as
a political tactic may also have been used more dramatically in India than
elsewhere , as Gandhi was able to draw on the total range of heightened
emotions surrounding food . poverty, anguish, dearth , and traditional values on
abstemiousness and refusal to accept food from spiritual inferiors as a route to
spiritual power.
Like others, H indus have been shown to vary in the fastidiousness with
which they observe food regulations . Within communities. variations may
signify (a) variant interpretations of the rules, (b) unavoidable conflicts where
different rules demand different patterns of deference in giving and receiving
food , or (c) a disincl ination to follow the rules. Food can thus serve as a vehicle
of "gastropolitics" which enables one to protest one ' s position or communicate
one ' s dissatisfaction with the status quo, as in the case of a woman who protests
her particular status by lapses in hospitality or deference (6) . The subtleties of
using food to communicate individual messages about social reJationships and
social status, given the shared sociocultural rules , are part of the "code" rather
than "intracultural variatio n . "
Alternatively, people ' s inclination t o "follow the rules" may change as
people move away from local communities that give support and meaning to
careful observances ( 1 7 1 ) . Festival patterns are often retained. even as day-to-
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 225
day food behaviors change when people move. They are one way in which
ethnic identity, where threatened by "acculturative" food forces , may be
maintained. Communities and individuals also illustrate substantial leeway in
interpreting regulations to suit personal or group historical circumstances (45 ) ,
particularly as o n e moves away from t h e cultural "center" to cultural
"periphery . " There , rules may be less strict or combined with other directives .
An extreme example is provided by most cases of "health food" faddism which
use concepts of natural foods and syncretize Indian and other Eastern cosmolo
gical beliefs with Western consumer dietary behavior and provide a good
contrast to culturally inherited rule-buund fuud behaviors . The rules by which
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such "syncretistic" vegetarians learn to eat a nutritionally balanced diet, and the
amount of agreement in philosophy and practice among them, demand more
than the anecdotal or individual case study attention they have so far received
( 1 69). The ideological, social , and nutritional impact of Dietfor a Small Planet
and Food First ( 1 88 , 1 89) among different age and social sets in American
culture could form a complementary study to document the interrelated socia l ,
symbolic , a n d material interests i n anti-meat eating in the United States.
Food has also been analyzed as material and symbol which marks the
prevailing sexual division of labor, social class, or ethnic identity . O ' Laugh
l i n ' s (245) symbolic-economic analysis of "Why the Mbum Kpau women don ' t
eat chicken" showed how the sexual division o f labor, male dominance over
production (control of land and granaries) and reproduction (al lotment of
women as wives) were reified in the food restrictions on women (women could
not eat chicke n , goat, or the preferred white flour porridge) . In this northwest
Chad society, women were subordinate to men in all things , including diet, and
therefore prohibited from eating chickens, which , like the women who raised
the m , were kept for food production and reproduction .
More generally, Goody ( 1 35) explored why some cultures have "high" and
"luw" cuisines, and some leave the food dimension of culture relatively
undifferentiated i f not underdeveloped . He suggested a general relationship
between the existence of such differential cuisines and the social organization
of production-including differential access to food processing technology,
foods traded over long distances, and the presence of available foods and social
statuses that would allow for complex differentiation in the food mode-but the
generalization needs more careful and thorough development and testing.
Barthcs ( 1 7) by contrast, dealt with food symbolism and its relationships to
social c lassifications in modern state societies . He considered the various
cultural meanings attributed to substances like sugar and coffee by different
national groups, such as the French versus the American. He also tried to
identify certain "tastes" with particular social classes-e . g . lower class prefer
ences generall y for extremely sweet or strong flavors .
Food is also a marker of ethnic identity via ethnic cuisine, which is charac-
226 MESSER
terized by items of particular flavor and type, recipes that combine food
elements in particular ways,meal fonnats that aggregate the dishes in predict
able manners, and meal cycles that alternate meal formats into ordinary and
festival meals as w�ll as particular types of festive eating events. Although such
cultural food patterning and group sharing rules can also be conceived as an
epiphenomenon of the material basis and prevailing social organization of
production, dietary structure or foodways have also been investigated as a
separate problem.
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Dietary structure, content, and change have been analyzed for either cultural or
nutritional ends, sometimes both, and continuities/discontinuities conceptual
ized in several ways. Goode (133) has reviewed the strengths and weaknesses
of various concepts and methods used to study cultural patterning in food
systems, used singly or in combination---observation, interview, and ex
perimental "game" methods (114). Studies of "ethnic" diets, for example,
usually report food item frequencies and evaluations in terms of core, second
ary core, and periphery (alternatively described as "superfoods"/"focal" foods/
"staples" as opposed to items less frequently, or infrequently consumed), and
are based on data of actual food preparation,observations,or reports of eating
activities plus additional interviews (1 14, 199, 250). Differences or changes in
the frequencies of selected items usually constitute measures of "enculturation"
or "deculturation" and are then related to changes in the food supply (such as
the unavailability of the former staple or fresh vegetables as people move from
rural to urban areas), the prestige associations of certain foods, or the time or
technological constraints of the food provider/preparer ( 1 62 , 182).
Other investigators (255), rather than analyzing single items, have used
factor analysis to identify clusters of "modern" or "traditional" foods. Drawing
on both the records of dietary intake and additional historical information,they
have found, not surprisingly, that people may incorporate distinct sets of
modem elements alongside traditional items,recipes,or meal formats,and that
such patterns of incorporation crosscut dietary differences due to household
"structural" variables such as income, educational levels, and individualistic
food preferences. The nutritional impact of such "modem" additions can be
described and measured by detailing where modern foods substitute for tradi
tional items (core foods, secondary core,periphery), and then calculating the
relative percent of calories and food expenditures (or total quantities of particu
lar nutrients, like cholesterol) accounted for by the modern items within these
or locally defined food categories, like "staples" and "relish." Measuring the
percent of calories supplied in households by,say, sorghum over maize,would
be an easy check on the impact of a sorghum promotion project, and also
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 227
Philadelphia (66, 1 34, 1 34a, 3 1 4) have suggested that the level of "shared
sociocultural rules and their consequences for nutritional behavior" is best
shown at the more inclusive levels of "meal formats" (proportions of different
foods that are stressed and unstressed) and "meal cycles . " Examining all four
levels in the food system, they concluded that while contemporary Italian
American diets were quite variable at the "individual item" and "recipe"
levels-where they had been transformed by extreme changes in the foods
available, food processing, and exposure to meals outside the home, the use of
mass communication (especially advertising) to create mass demand , and the
nature of work and leisure activity cycles, especially women's work inside and
outside the home---continuities in meal formats and cycles persisted alongside
changes in items and menus. By studying intervals in time longer than the meal
or day, and social units larger than the household, they found it was possible to
discover shared patterns (e . g . the "rules" for marking Fridays, weekends , and
holidays with particular formats), flexibility rules (e . g . the ways in which
buffet formats allowed individuals to incorporate both American and Italian
content into traditional meals) , and general trends in food classifications (e . g .
regular alternation o f "gravy" versus "platter" meals, sauces described .in terms
of color, taste , texture, greasiness, spiciness, and thermal characteristics), and
preferences (e . g . a younger generation of Italian-Americans socialized in the
1 960s and 1 970s who prefer foods transformed from their natural state-e . g.
meat without head or feet but still recognizable) .
The study formed part of a larger Russell Sage project on gastronomic
categories (85 , 1 34a, 267 , 327) , which examined distinct regional and ethnic
cuisines in the United States (Northeast urban ethnic Italian, Southern rural and
urban, black and white, and Native American Sioux) employing frameworks
that emphasized social contexts (type of occasion, time, and location) that
affected food intakes . They were also able to report the relative significance of
extra-household eating events in the food lives of individuals-which proved to
be a frequent food force . One project incorporated an investigation of the
relationships between diet, obesity, and hypertension (327) . Although reports
from the projects so far indicate more the social and cultural than nutritional
228 MESSER
evaluates the timing and patterning of food exchange in the festival cycle as
ecological regulators-which control quantities of livestock, such as pigs,
relative to other food resources , such as sweet potatoes (269), or promote
nutritional suffici ency within a population by distributing high quality protein
and other nutrients to those in want, particularly at times of the year whcn thc
poorer segments of the population may be food short ( 1 2 1 ) . Even in contempor
ary peasant societies , the scheduling and activities that take place in the annual
round of Saints ' days festivities may ensure the poorer members of the popUla
tion high quality food on as many as 1 0% of the days of the year (80 , 1 36) , and
ritual obligations between patrons and clients may augment nutrient intake of
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Economic Factors
Sensory , symbolic, and structural dimensions notwithstanding, the overriding
considerations in dietary constructions seem to be economic. Even when
peopl e have nutritional knowledge on what would be good to eat , considera
tions of flavor and cost take precedence in food choices, and economic factors
l imit further whether p eople can satisfy their taste choices (44, 76, 76a) .
Although it has b een argued that people often make uneconomic and poor
nutritional choices in the interests of consuming relatively expensive but
"prestigious" foods , this does not weaken the generalization that economic
constraints set l imits on food sel ection and consequent nutritional status,
particularly for those subsisting pri ncipally on marketed foods. Peopl e may
appear "uneconomic " in their desire to break the monotony of diets, as where
Richards recorded B emba natives often paid exhorbitant sums to merchants for
dried, salted fish if they had gone weeks without relief from their bulky cereal
diet (273 ) . Additionally, some have speculated, looking at the phenomenon of
"junk foods , " that such items may m eet n eeds for sweets, fats , other flavors ,
and denser calories in h igh bulk diets. However, to take such a positive
nutritional position, one must first ascertain (a) that there are sufficient material
resources to buy (provide) enough of the staple and secondary foods for all
individuals eating from a common food basket , such that intakes of other
nutritious foods do not suffer, and (b) that those eating "junk foods" are not
sating themselves with calories from junk foods that destroy their appetites for
230 MESSER
and sex. The relative pe�cent of calories supplied by the principal staple and the
threshhold at which people change from more expensive and preferred dietary
staples---e. g . from cassava to rice in Brazil, or from less to more preferred rice
varieties in Sri Lanka-have been suggested as measures or threshholds of
poverty or hunger (94, 263). Substantial energy intakes from sucrose, often
inexpensive and government subsidized, may be a further indicator of impover
ished diet as workers indulge in the sweet taste that provides a "quick rush of
energy" to motivate them for work at low cost (232a). The historical signifi
cance of sugar as a cheap energy source to fuel the growth of industry and the
consequences of the sugar demand for the growth of plantation economies have
been suggested by Mintz (234), among others. The share of sugar in the food
structure of contemporary modernizing economies begs similar attention.
Seasonal or more permanent scarcity may affect not only food choices, but
also the social relations surrounding food. Food rationing-reduction from two
to one meal per day-may begin soon after the harvest and a period of feasting
(123, 273), and affects the pacing of grain consumption, food sharing relations,
and nutritional status over an annual cycle. The flexibility with which hospital
ity obligations shrink as food supplies dwindle has been reported in a number of
studies ( 109, 273). A model that graphs how social cooperation increases as
resources go from desperate to adequate and then drops off as there is plenty
(190) suggests a way to quantify such rel�tionships, but the model has not been
carefully illustrated with quantified resource and social data from any particular
culture.
Also along economic lili.es, anthropologists �mong others (318) have begun
to consider the time budget of the food provider or preparer-usually the focal
female (head food decision-maker of a household)-as an additional economic
factor affecting food production and food selections. Food providers have been
shown to calculate the amount of time as well as cash that must be allocated to
the procurement and preparation of different foods (including time and cash
costs of fuel) under different conditions of household organization and cash
work (65, 142, 231a). Popkin and colleagues (265, 266), investigating the
factors associated with vitamin A deficiency in the Philippines, suggested that
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 23 1
Nutritional Wisdom
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have shown that maladaptive food practices had a very shallow history, and
were therefore easily amenable to change. Investigators explained which cus
toms were recent and slightly modified the resource base so that all, but
especially women, had access to more nutrients (50) .
Certain populations may also be biologically more at risk for specific
nutrition-related disorders, such as glucose intolerance and hypertension,
although the relative contributions of genetics , diet, and activity patterns
(energy balance and life styles including "stress") to these and other nutrition
related diseases remain to be worked out for contemporary populations under
going change in all three dimensions (23 , 26, 28 , 87, 1 5 5 , 200, 327) . More
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undermine the land and subsistence base of the poor, in some instances, even
"efficiently" favoring production of animal feed over food for people (77, 78) .
Highly technologized Green Revolution agriculture eliminates many of the
marginal subsistence activities that traditionally allowed small holders to sup
plement their incomes as laborers in food production or food processing (334).
Modem emphasis on monocrop production also reduces the variety of products
the land traditionally yielded. Commercialization and modernization schemes
often benefit the producers of the factors of production (machinery, hybrid
seeds, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides) and controllers of irrigation and credit
rather than smallholders (153). Respondents report factors of production may
not arrive on time or at all, or new agricultural "packages" may undermine the
ongoing productivity of the land; in either case reducing the short- and long-run
nutritional options, and usually making impossible a return to the initial diet
(77, 78). Only where governments consciously discouraged food imports and
thereby promoted basi<; food production for home markets did nutrition seem to
improve, although the dynamics of changes in dietary intake are often not
adequately reported in such nutritional studies (2 1 2 , 2 1 3 ) . It was assumed that
rural children benefited from the additional products available along with basic
food crops grown for the marketplace.
Anthropologists, following nutritionists, have collected and analyzed deter
minants of food intake, dietary data, and nutrition by several methods ( 1 64) .
A n analytic tool which has received some attention, particularly among those
studying rural diets in Latin America, is "dietary complexity. " "Food diversity
indices" or "dietary complexity scores" are constructed by calculating the
numbers of different food items consumed by individuals or households over a
given period of time. This quantitative measure of qualitative patterns is
supposed to serve as a surrogate measure of nutritional value of the diet, since
those consuming a greater diversity of foods are presumed to be taking in more
and a better mix of nutrients (76, 279).
Dietary complexity has been used as one of several ways to compare diets of
rich and poor both qualitatively and nutritionally in a Mexican community (76),
and might also be used to roughly screen households for malnutrition within a
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 235
which the purchased foods that repl ac e the ho rne produced items are adequate
-
nutritional substitutes. If cash cropping (or other programs for income genera
tion) move people off what was an adequate diet from subsistence crops and
activities toward more expensive foods or foods higher on the food chain,
nutrition may su ffer (75 ) . Such substitutions rarely result in nutritional im
provement. Her contrast of diets of families who have adopted cash cropping
versus those who retain adequate subsistence production shows no i m prove
ment (75). Thus, the tradeoff between cash and adequate diet remains prob
lematic and suggests that other cultural factors in dietary selection and food
distribution are operating which must be studied. In su m m ary , such studies
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point to some of the problems of try ing to improve nutrition through direct or
indirect economic development schemes, which, whether aimed at foraging,
horticultural , or agricultural populations, usually destroy t he initial subsistence
base, and often result in inad equate c ash and n utrition al c h o i c es.
In other settings , cash crops like coffee also upset traditional nutrition
patterns in the short run by forcing people to buy food , and in the long run , by
transforming the sexual division of labor, control over (cash) resources , or both
(308) , and potentially, trade and ideological relationships between and within
groups (1 05 ) .
Additional areas o f concern i n economic development are the dietary
nutritional impact of women's work, i ncludi ng how women ' s employment
time and income affect domestic and child care arrangements (and therefore
children ' s health ) , overall food availability , and intrahousehold distribution of
food ( 1 85 a , 265 ) . S imple correlations between the nutritional status of children
whose mothers work or do not work have been used to argue that children may
be worse off when their mothers are employed although such claims are
,
usually not supported by careful data sets which stratify the sample according to
women 's income, men 's income, and total household income (265) . It may be
that households where women work are still better off than they would be
without the woman' s income, since women ' s income, in contrast to men ' s , has
usually been shown to go directly into food and other necessities for the
children (3 1 5a) , although the sociocultural dynamics of dietary choices and
adverse effects on childcare have not been scrupulously reported.
Different patterns of cash employment also affect intrahousehold distribu
tion of food more generally. Gross & Underwood' s ( 1 40) study of energy flow
among sisal workers showed that male wage earners received preference in the
allocation of calories. They were fed first , in sufficient quantity to sustain their
work , often at the expense of children and women, who received inadequate
calories if total household food supply was insufficient for all . It has also been
suggested for other cultures that males of all ages receive priority over females
in food allocations, although this "truism" for countries like India and B ang
ladesh has been questioned and qualified by more intensive research of dietary
PERSPECTIVES ON DIET 237
intakes and nutritional status at the household level. B irth order, numbers of
children, and the economic status of the household, in addition to "food
ideology" seem to affect whether such rules are followed (276), and therefore,
the nutritional impact of such food beliefs.
This review has indicated that the specialized anthropological studies of food
begun in the 1 930s (60, 6 1 , 273) continue to provide concepts , categories, and
in certain cases methods of data collection for contemporary investigations of
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the relationships between diet and culture. Anthropologists are still called upon
to discuss, advise, and in certain cases suggest solutions to nutritional prob
lems, but now, as then (237), their reports seem to have had limited impact on
food policies. Additional agronomic and nutritional topics which anthropolog
ists might consider exploring in the area of food policy are: (a) the "sociology of
knowledge" within groups of scientists and bureaucrats governing agronomic
and nutritional policy (e. g . the ethnobotanical , food, and nutritional classifica
tions of plant geneticists contributing new plant varieties or industrialized
foods , and of economists and nutritionists designing policies to favor selected
"minimum" diets to meet recommended nutritional standards); (b) the
sociocultural , political, and economic motives behind different and changing
country and world nutritional standards (229a); and (c) the effects of different
types of food and economic policies on dietary selections, intrahousehold
distribution of resources , and nutrition. In particular, more thorough investiga
tions of the social organization of household tasks are needed to show how
households and individuals react to economic development programs . Such
investigations could provide a. data base on time allocation (23 1 a) and house
hold budgets ( 1 1 0 , 1 43) which would help sort out some of the "problems" in
the correlation between income, food expenditures , health, and nutrition.
Results could also be combined with physical anthropological studies of energy
expenditure to increase our understanding of how those beyond the socioecono
mic stage of foraging manage time and energy under variable resource condi
tions.
Current research on many of these topics also suggest that anthropologists'
concerns with intrahousehold resource use, and differences in how individuals
and households within the same community organize potential food resources,
may also provide important guides to understanding how food "cultures" and
"economies" change. Methods to study how individuals and households within
the same community with supposedly the "same" culture and economy manage
resources are being proposed and tried (75a, 23 1 a, 252 , 252a, 276) in various
nutrition studies . In addition, studies of dietary and nutritional patterns ( 1 33 )
are expanding the dimensions o f time and space within which dietary intakes
238 MESSER
point in time and over time continues, as changing nutritional and activity
patterns either threaten or improve health prospects, and either undermine or
reinforce the cultural symbolic and social functional values of local diets.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper was prepared while the author was a Fellow at the Center for
Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California. I am grateful
for financial support provided by NSF BNS 76-22943 . I thank W . Durham and
B . Orlove for their comments on earlier drafts of this material.
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