Edible Medicines

by Etkin, Nina L.

• ISBN13: 9780816527489
• ISBN10: 0816527482
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-24
• Publisher: Univ of Arizona Pr

Summary

In this wide-ranging book, Nina Etkin investigates the health implications of foods from the cuisines of peoples around the world to describe the place of food in health maintenance. She incorporates co-evolution along with a biocultural perspective in addressing some of the physiological effects of foods across cultures and through history while taking into account both the complex dynamics of food choice and the blurred distinctions between food and medicine. Showing that food choice is more closely linked to health than is commonly thought, Etkin helps us understand the health implications of people’s food-centered actions in the context of real-life circumstances. Drawing on an extensive literature that transects food and culture, the history of medicine, ethnopharmacology, food history, nutrition, and human evolution, Edible Medicines will appeal to a wide range of scholars and professionals from anthropologists to nutritionists, as well as general readers seeking a greater understanding of the medicinal aspects of food.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 3
Food in the History of Biomedicine	p. 44
Spices: The Pharmacology of the Exotic	p. 83
Fermented Foods and Beverages	p. 107
The Lives of Social Plants	p. 134
Medicinal Qualities of Animal Foods	p. 173
Health in the Marketplace: Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Functional Foods, and More	p. 204
Some Common Spices	p. 229
Notes	p. 237
References	p. 245
General Index	p. 283
Scientific Index	p. 297
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