The cultural identity is based on the biology, but tastes better.
Answering the question “what do we eat” is central to our omnivorous identity, unknown by herbivores nor carnivores, as they just eat the same every day.
The major cuisines of the world compose meals from the main food groups: meat or milk products when available, beans [...]
There might be as many taboos as people
A taboo food is a food from which people abstain for cultural or religious reasons. As the common meal is an important way to share common humanity, the food taboo is an important way to separate “us” from “them”. While the laws of hospitality join everybody around the [...]
Dining together to create a common identity and as an educational tool
Dining together, is an important community-building institution. Extended family and community are less defined by bloodlines than by sharing a meal on a regular basis or on special occasions such as Christmas, marriage or funerals. Indeed, the genetic offspring was never sure for men, [...]
The cooking hunter-gatherer
Humans should not return to their “cave man diet” to be healthy. What a creature eats in the wild is not necessarily the best option. In the wild, the full potential of a species cannot be developed due to a lack of available nutrients, illness, competition with members of their own species, and [...]
The relationship to food is at the heart of the culture which we learn from our parents. Eating is–with its do’s and don’ts and its daily rituals–a central cultural institution like literature, songs, architecture, or music. Since eating has been confused with nutrition and dieting, it seems like the “ethics of eating” is in danger [...]
