Food Cults

Food Cults PDF

Author: Kima Cargill

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2016-12-01

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1442251328

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What do we mean when we call any group a cult? Definingthat term is a slippery proposition – the word cult is provocative and arguably pejorative. Does it necessarily refer to a religious group? A group with a charismatic leader? Or something darker and more sinister? Because beliefs and practices surrounding food often inspire religious and political fervor, as well as function to unite people into insular groups, it is inevitable that "food cults" would emerge. Studying the extreme beliefs and practices of such food cults allows us to see the ways in which food serves as a nexus for religious beliefs, sexuality, death anxiety, preoccupation with the body, asceticism, and hedonism, to name a few. In contrast to religious and political cults, food cults have the added dimension of mediating cultural trends in nutrition and diet through their membership. Should we then consider raw foodists, many of whom believe that cooked food is poison, a type of food cult? What about paleo diet adherents or those who follow a restricted calorie diet for longevity? Food Cults explores these questions by looking at domestic and international, contemporary and historic food communities characterized by extreme nutritional beliefs or viewed as "fringe" movements by mainstream culture. While there are a variety of accounts of such food communities across disciplines, this collection pulls together these works and explains why we gravitate toward such groups and the social and psychological functions they serve. This volume describes how contemporary and historic food communities come together and foment fanaticism, judgment, charisma, dogma, passion, longevity, condemnation and exaltation.

Diet Cults: The Surprising Fallacy at the Core of Nutrition Fads and a Guide to Healthy Eating for the Rest of Us

Diet Cults: The Surprising Fallacy at the Core of Nutrition Fads and a Guide to Healthy Eating for the Rest of Us PDF

Author: Matt Fitzgerald

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-05-15

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1605985953

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From the national bestselling author of Racing Weight, Matt Fitzgerald exposes the irrationality, half-truths, and downright impossibility of a “single right way” to eat, and reveals how to develop rational, healthy eating habits. From “The Four Hour Body,” to “Atkins,” there are diet cults to match seemingly any mood and personality type. Everywhere we turn, someone is preaching the “One True Way” to eat for maximum health. Paleo Diet advocates tell us that all foods less than 12,000 years old are the enemy. Low-carb gurus demonize carbs, then there are the low-fat prophets. But they agree on one thing: there is only one true way to eat for maximum health. The first clue that that is a fallacy is the sheer variety of diets advocated. Indeed, while all of these competing views claim to be backed by “science,” a good look at actual nutritional science itself suggests that it is impossible to identify a single best way to eat. Fitzgerald advocates an agnostic, rational approach to eating habits, based on one’s own habits, lifestyle, and genetics/body type. Many professional athletes already practice this “Good Enough” diet, and now we can too and ditch the brainwashing of these diet cults for good.

Nutrition, Food Markets and Agriculture

Nutrition, Food Markets and Agriculture PDF

Author: Christian J. Jäggi

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-09-30

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 3658346728

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Today, nutrition is mainly discussed under nutritional, medical-health or ideological aspects (e.g. vegetarianism, veganism, etc.). Although the food industry represents one of the most important markets, questions of food production, agriculture, food trade and biodiversity are mostly discussed under national auspices. Not only on the producer side, but also from the consumer perspective, food markets - although still nationally structured - have become more and more global markets, which can be seen, for example, in the development of food commodity prices. In addition, large food corporations are pursuing the strategy of standardizing the entire value chains in the agricultural and food sectors - under their control, mind you. The book addresses economic issues related to food production, agriculture, food trade and biodiversity. Alternatives to traditional agriculture, factory farming, and biodiversity loss are discussed - and reflected upon from an economic perspective. Particular attention is paid to aspects of globalization. This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Ernährung, Nahrungsmittelmärkte und Landwirtschaft by Christian J. Jäggi, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature in 2018. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.

Holy Food

Holy Food PDF

Author: Christina Ward

Publisher: Process

Published: 2021-08-03

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9781934170861

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Holy Food explores the influence of newer and unorthodox beliefs on modern American food. Beginning with the infamous strawberry shortcake that sated visitors to the Oneida Community in the late 1800s to the celebratory cakes of the Unarius practitioners in present-day California, Ward shows us a range of feasting and fasting. Religious beliefs have been the source of food "rules" since Pythagoras told his followers not to eat beans (they contain souls), Kosher and Halal rules forbade the shrimp cocktail (shellfish are scavengers, or maybe G-d just said "no"), and a long-ago Pope forbade Catholics to eat meat on Fridays (one should fast to atone for committed sins). In America, where the freedom to believe whatever you want and worship the god of not only of your own choice but of your own making embraced old traditions and invented new ones. Holy Food looks at how the explosion of new religious movements since the Great Awakening birthed a cottage industry of food fads that gained mainstream acceptance. And at the obscure sects and non-religious communities of the 20th Century that dabbled in vague spirituality that used food to both entice and control followers. Ward skillfully navigates between her vast cookbook collection, academic texts, and interviews to make sharp observations and new insights in this highly readable journey through the American kitchen. Included are examples of rare cookbooks, interviews, and updated versions of holyrecipes, and a lively narrative that weaves it all together.

Hippie Food

Hippie Food PDF

Author: Jonathan Kauffman

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2018-01-23

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0062437321

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An enlightening narrative history—an entertaining fusion of Tom Wolfe and Michael Pollan—that traces the colorful origins of once unconventional foods and the diverse fringe movements, charismatic gurus, and counterculture elements that brought them to the mainstream and created a distinctly American cuisine. Food writer Jonathan Kauffman journeys back more than half a century—to the 1960s and 1970s—to tell the story of how a coterie of unusual men and women embraced an alternative lifestyle that would ultimately change how modern Americans eat. Impeccably researched, Hippie Food chronicles how the longhairs, revolutionaries, and back-to-the-landers rejected the square establishment of President Richard Nixon’s America and turned to a more idealistic and wholesome communal way of life and food. From the mystical rock-and-roll cult known as the Source Family and its legendary vegetarian restaurant in Hollywood to the Diggers’ brown bread in the Summer of Love to the rise of the co-op and the origins of the organic food craze, Kauffman reveals how today’s quotidian whole-foods staples—including sprouts, tofu, yogurt, brown rice, and whole-grain bread—were introduced and eventually became part of our diets. From coast to coast, through Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Vermont, Kauffman tracks hippie food’s journey from niche oddity to a cuisine that hit every corner of this country. A slick mix of gonzo playfulness, evocative detail, skillful pacing, and elegant writing, Hippie Food is a lively, engaging, and informative read that deepens our understanding of our culture and our lives today.

Cultish

Cultish PDF

Author: Amanda Montell

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-06-15

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0062993178

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The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power. What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . . Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day. Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.

Nomadic Food

Nomadic Food PDF

Author: Jean Pierre Williot

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-10-10

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1538115999

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In this book, contributors examine the many meanings of the term 'nomad' through the study of food habits. Food and beverage products have become just as nomadic as other objects, such as telephones and computers, whereas in the past only food and money were able to move about with their carriers. Food industries have seized control of this trend to make it the characteristic feature of consumption outside the home - always faster and more convenient, the just-in-time meal: 'what I want, when I want, where I want', snacks, finger food, and street food. The terms reveal the contemporary modernity and spread of food practices, but they are only modified versions of older and more uncommon forms of behavior. Mobility, in the sense of multiple forms of moving about using public or individual, and possibly intermodal, means of transport, on spatial scales and temporal rhythms which are frequent and recurring but variable, responding to professional or leisure needs, can serve as a basic premise in order to gain insight into the concept of food nomadism.

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