Food, medicine, and the quest for good health nutrition, medicine, and culture

144 Pages·2009·0.861 MB·English

by  Chen, Nancy N

Food, Medicine,
and the
Quest For Good health

Food, Medicine,
Quest
and the for
Good health
Nutrition, Medicine, and Culture
nancy n. chen
coluMbia university Press
new york
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2009 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chen, Nancy N.
Food, medicine, and the quest for good health:
nutrition, medicine, and culture / Nancy N. Chen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-231-13484-2 (hard cover : alk. paper) —
isbn 978-0-231-50891-9 (e-book)
1. Diet therapy—Social aspects.
2. Functional foods—Social aspects.
3. Food habits. 4. Medical anthropology.
I. Title.
rm217.c44 2008
615.8'54—dc22 2008026477
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and
durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For sami and laeti,
who make life immeasurably sweet;
and to dru,
spice of my life

contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
introduction
Rethinking Food and Medicine 1
part one
Food as Medicine
one
Healing Foods and Longevity 17
two
Dietary Prescriptions and Comfort Foods 53
part two
Medicine as Food
three
Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods 79
contents
four
Genetically Modified Foods and Drugs 92
conclusion
Eating and Medicating 109
Notes 115
Bibliography 119
Index 127
viii
preface
Food and medicine matter immensely to me. I grew up in
southern Louisiana, where the local food cultures of Cajun,
Creole, African, Spanish, Native American, and southern
cooking provided a deeply textured world of foodways, or cu-
linary habits and practices. When they were children my par-
ents did not live in times of plenty; as a result, I have inherit-
ed thrifty habits and deeply appreciate sustenance of all sorts.
Schools prepared all food from scratch then. My fondest mem-
ory of elementary school was arriving to the morning scent of
freshly baked bread. At home my parents continued to make
the foods of their childhood, so rice was a staple, along with
regional Chinese dishes. As immigrants who came to the Unit-
ed States during the golden era of the 1960s, my parents were
always curious about American food culture, so we frequent-
ly visited cafeterias and po-boy shacks. They rarely denied me
or my siblings items that were deemed “bad,” such as junk
food, fast food, highly sugared cereals, doughnuts, or deep-
fried fatty foods. My mother never cooked with written reci-
pes or cookbooks, relying instead on taste. I also learned about
PreFace
food preparation by visiting other friends’ homes and by read-
ing the instructions on the box.
How, then, did I come to appreciate food on a continu-
um with medicine and associate certain foods with nutritional
value? It started at home. Instead of relying solely on biomed-
icine, my mother incorporated her knowledge of Chinese nu-
tritional therapy, which gives food properties according to such
factors as the temperature of the food, its dampness, and its
bitterness or sweetness. In addition to ready-made ointments
and tinctures from her homeland to patch up scrapes, cuts,
and infections, my mother brewed ginger in wine or added
brown sugar to stewed pears whenever we caught a cold or
cough. Stomach troubles meant that our diets would change:
we would be put on a strict regimen of rice congee (or por-
ridge), sometimes with a tiny pickled turnip, until our stom-
achs were better. When stricken with a fever or flu, we were
given a changed food regimen as well. My mother would first
eliminate spicy or oily foods; then she would slowly reintro-
duce very plain foods, such as a thin, watery rice porridge.
Gradually, as we got better, the gruel became less watery and
more like rice. Rice porridge can be a desirable food when we
are well. At dim sum restaurants congee is served as a morning
meal, and it can be consumed as a late-night snack. For the el-
derly and young babies with no teeth this can be a nutritious
and easily digestible staple. In European desserts rice puddings
tend to be sweetened with sugar or honey or made with milk
and spices. Decades later, in graduate school, I learned that the
recommended WHO (World Health Organization) oral rehy-
dration therapy for diarrhea and starvation was basically wa-
tery rice porridge.
As a medical anthropologist, I have come full circle in my
study of healing across cultures. I am committed to reimagin-