Pure Food

Theoretical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Paul Collinson, Helen Macbeth

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781836951209
  9781805390183
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781805390190
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Agricultural Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In presenting a variety of theoretical and cross-cultural perspectives on pure food, this volume demonstrates similarities and variations in cultural beliefs, behaviours and practices in different societies. These in turn highlight that pure food is a common issue for humanity, whatever the society, whatever the era. As a subject with much contemporary and cross-disciplinary relevance, Pure Food will appeal to students and academics involved in any food-related discipline, to professional practitioners promoting healthier foods and nutrition and to general readers with an interest in food.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction. Pure Food: Theoretical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives
• 1. The Impurities of Purity
• 2. ‘Pure’ Food and Food Taboos in Cross-Cultural and Human Ethological Perspective
• 3. Food and Order: Purity, Danger and the Bayesian Brain
• 4. From Concepts of Pure Food to a Healthy Diet in Greco-Roman Antiquity
• 5. Eating Pure: Ethnography and Food in ‘Fitness Cultures’
• 6. ‘Pure Food’ in Catering for Public Institutions: Policies and Aspirations in the City of Liverpool, England
• 7. Blood Used in Food: When, Where and Why Not?
• 8. Pure Food, Food Tourism and the Mythologising of Western Ireland
• 9. Bioethics and Pure Food: The Consumers’ Dilemma in West Mexico
• 10. The Label ‘Organic’ as a Representation of Food Purity: A Study of an Organic Beef Farm in Oxfordshire, England
• Epilogue. From Pure Food to Purification: A Review of Perspectives
• Index