Everyone Eats: Understanding Food and Culture

by E. N. Anderson

Overview

Everyone eats, but rarely do we investigate why we eat what we eat. Why do we love spices, sweets, coffee? How did rice become such a staple food throughout so much of eastern Asia? Everyone Eats examines the social and cultural reasons for our food choices and provides an explanation of the nutritional reasons for why humans eat what they do, resulting in a unique cultural and biological approach to the topic. E. N. Anderson explains the economics of food in the globalization era; food’s relationship to religion, medicine, and ethnicity; and offers suggestions on how to end hunger, starvation, and malnutrition.

This thoroughly updated Second Edition incorporates the latest food scholarship, most notably recognizing the impact of sustainable eating advocacy and the state of food security in the world today. Anderson also brings more insight than ever before into the historical and scientific underpinnings of our food customs, fleshing this out with fifteen new and original photographs from his own extensive fieldwork.

A perennial classic in the anthropology of food, Everyone Eats feeds our need to understand human ecology by explaining the ways that cultures and political systems structure the edible environment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814770146
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	02/07/2014
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	362
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

E. N. Anderson is Professor of Anthropology Emeritus at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of numerous books, including Everyone Eats: Understanding Food and Culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Everyone Eats
Introduction to the Second Edition: One More Round
1. Obligatory Omnivores
2. Human Nutritional Needs
3. More Needs Than One
4. The Senses: Taste, Smell, and the Adapted Mind
5. Basics: Environment and Economy
6. Food and Traditional Medicine
7. Food as Pleasure
8. Food Classification and Communication
9. Me, Myself, and the Others: Food as Social Marker
10. Food and Religion
11. Change
12. Foods and Borders: Ethnicities, Cuisines, and Boundary Crossings
13. Feeding the World
Appendix: Explaining It All: Nutritional Anthropology and Food Scholarship
Notes
References
Index
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

"Everyone Eats is anthropology at its best, an exceptional blend of biological and cultural explanation that reveals our relationship with food and eating. Anderson's personal ethnographic experience as a nutritional anthropologist among cultures from around the world will leave the reader with a sense of wonderment about the fundamental human act of eating. Throughout the book Anderson develops a deep social conscience about the problems of overand under-nutritionthat face the world today"

Barrett P. Brenton

"Plenty of cultural insights and background history lend to a survey particularly recommended for college-level students of anthropology and social science."

The Midwest Book Review The Bookwatch

Everyone Eats is a relevant text for researchers exploring the relationship between food and society. Furthermore, it is a provocative text for future course design and policy making, as it provides a diverse account of the complexities involved in exploring the importance of food choices in today’s societies.”-Graduate Journal of Food Studies

"Anderson’s book is a solid introduction to the anthropology of food for students and general readers. It is clear,
well-written, spiced with interesting examples, and illustrated with many evocative photographs taken by the author."-Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"Plenty of cultural insights and background history lend to a survey particularly recommended for college-level students of anthropology and social science."-Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher

"Although intended for the general public and not as a textbook, this book is recommended for higher education, especially advanced courses"

Choice

"Anderson’s book is a solid introduction to the anthropology of food for students and general readers. It is clear, well-written, spiced with interesting examples, and illustrated with many evocative photographs taken by the author and by Barbara Anderson."

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"Anderson's view of the relationship between the biological and the cultural is nicely provocative, and his rich personal fieldwork experiences greatly enliven the pages of Everyone Eats."

Sidney W. Mintz