Perspective Nutrition Paradigms, Alissa Overend

PERSPECTIVE NUTRITION PARADIGMS KNOWING AND EATING A BRIEF WESTERN HISTORY OF NUTRITION PARADIGMS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at University , in , Treaty territory . Her teaching and research interests include critical food studies , the sociology of health and illness , theory , and social inequality . Her book , Shifting Food Facts Dietary Discourse in a Culture , was recently published with Critical Food Studies series . Learning Outcomes 298 NUTRITION PARADIGMS

After reading and discussing this text , students should be able to Explain the historical relativity of nutritional paradigms . Differentiate between medicine , the doctrine of signatures , and modern . Argue for the ways our understandings of food change our relationships to it . INTRODUCTION ! As a sociologist , I have long maintained that food is cultural . Food ties to our childhoods , to our families and their histories , and to our cultures and their traditions . What we eat tastes and a reflection of those histories . What we eat today is also a reflection of our access to various foods , whether through geographical location and food availability , or through the social of health , such as income , affordable housing , and job security , which affect our ability to procure and prepare food . While food can be studied through a range of disciplinary lenses ( logical , anthropological , biological , etc . this chapter analyzes how historic of food shape contemporary ings of health . To understand why we eat the way we eat , we also have to examine the changing social and historical in and through which we come to know food , and , frame health and nutrition . This chapter offers a broad overview of three paradigm shifts in Western nutritional wisdom ( a ) ancient ( the Ages and the . This chapter has been adapted from Western of Healthy Eating From Medicine to Modern , Chapter in my book Shifting Food Facts ( 2021 , 14 ) I use us , our and we in a plural sense to capture multiplicity , not , of people , identities , and cultures . 299

Doctrine of Signatures and ( modern . Knowledge about food is contingent and changes over time , depending on the values circulating at any given historical moment . A BRIEF WESTERN HISTORY OF FOOD KNOWLEDGE Ancient and Renaissance food knowledge For more than 15 centuries in much of Europe and its colonies , the dominant understanding of food and nutrition stemmed from the theories of medicine . Although the ancient Greek physician , Hippocrates , did not put forth the complete theory of medicine , he is often credited for attributing foods with heating , cooling , and drying ties . It was Galen , a Greek physician and disciple of Hippocrates , who advanced and popularized the idea that disease states were the result of an imbalance of the bodily bile , yellow bile , blood , and were considered central for the body regulation , maintenance , and function medicine was part of a broader dietetic understanding of health and medicine held by the ancient Greeks . Dietetics were a set of rules that regulated the care of the self , including eating , ing , sex , exercise , and sleep . These rules were not the same for and bodies were seen to ate different foods . Likewise , athletes and scholars had divergent dietetic needs . Unlike today almost singular focus on the between health and nutrition , dietetics was a holistic mode living that combined health , medical , and philosophical to everyday Given the holistic framework of dietetics , it is unsurprising that according to logic , diet was both the cause and . Anderson 2005 , 2000 , 26 . 300 NUTRITION PARADIGMS

ment of disease . The principal philosophy behind medicine was rebalance the humours by ing foods with the opposite properties to the symptoms described . For example , a physician would attempt to correct phlegmatic symptoms ( those that were considered a result of an excess of cold and moist properties ) with foods that were classified as hot and Likewise , a fever would be by cooling foods and liquids ( a method still used today ) Eating foods with opposite properties to ones temperament was to maintain balance , part of a dietetic regimen of While theory was widely accepted from ancient times into the Renaissance , the classification of cold , dry foods was more complicated and widely debated . Detailed in his book Eating Right in the Renaissance , Ken documents how properties were foremost categorized through The tongue was the first kind of mus effects foods would have on the rest of the body . Black pepper , which burns or warms the tongue , was presumed to have similar heating effects as it passed through the body sour foods , such as lemons , were considered cooling and ing ( or drying ) to the tongue , and were assumed to have similar effects on the rest of the body and cooling foods , such as , were classified as cooling and to the tongue , and were thought to hydrate the body . In addition to taste , a food colour was also used to determine its properties . Red and yellow foods , such as bell peppers , were considered ing green foods , like lettuce or spinach , were considered cooling and foods pallid in colour , such as rice and bread , were ered to have neutral effects on the Another consideration . 2013 , 12 . 2016 , 19 . 2002 , 52 . Anderson . 301

in food classification was the physical environment in which foods grew . Marsh plants , for example , were considered cool and wet , while mountain plants were cool and Cooking methods , food order , and food pairings also played important roles in the ancient and Renaissance understanding of foods effects on the body and on health . Potentially harmful foods such as raw meats or eggs were corrected ( or balanced ) by appropriate cooking methods and by combining foods to any . The latter is one explanation for why meats , which were considered heating , were often with vegetables , which were cooling , and why denser red meats were often broken down into soups and stews , rendering them easier to Wheat also had to be corrected ( or ) by salt and leavening processes , rendering it more easily digestible and absorbed by the body . Food order was also debated at great length . The general consensus among ancient and Renaissance physicians was to start with opening foods , which is one explanation for why European cuisines tend to start with cooling salads . jams and cheeses , because of their ture , were seen to close the meal by providing a plug between the stomach and the mouth , and likewise still function in many European cuisines as By the century , through mass migration and colonization , medicine had spread throughout the various parts of the world , blending with the traditional knowledge systems of local cultural groups . medicine and its associated of food remain one of the documented knowledge systems historically and . As . Anderson notes , by the century , the humoral 2002 , 81 . 10 . 11 . Ibid , 94 . Ibid , 59 . 302 NUTRITION PARADIGMS

food was the most widespread belief on earth , far outrunning any single 12 While the bulk of contemporary Western food knowledge has drifted away from , remnants of this system still linger . Many people continue to treat the common cold ( the name of the ailment itself a vestige of thinking ) with a hot soup , refer to a laid back or chill person as someone who is as cool as a cucumber , and use the word hot as a synonym for Moreover , distant cousins of the system are still widely used by Chinese , Ayurvedic , Indigenous , and some holistic dietary practices where food and diet are used to counteract ( or ) disease states . The major Western epistemological shift in food knowledge that followed medicine was the folk concept of the Doctrine of Signatures ( DOS ) The DOS emerged out of the spiritual paradigm of the late Ages and lated as an alternative model to theory into the period . Middle Ages and the Doctrine of Signatures While Galen and Hippocrates subscribed to the healing of antipathy ( opposite cures opposite ) Swiss physician and his followers espoused the healing philosophy of sympathy ( like cures like ) In the spiritual societies of the Middle Ages , the guiding premise of the DOS was that the divine creator had endowed ( signatures ) that pointed healers to the tive potential of foods and plants . Unlike medicine , which focused on a food taste , colour , and location of growth , the theory DOS contended that a food shape provided clues 12 . Anderson 2005 , 142 . 13 . Ibid , 84 . 14 . Bennett 2007 , 248 . 303

15 . 16 . 17 . to the body part or ailment it was intended to A walnut , for example , which resembles the brain , was widely used to treat head ailments gingerroot , which resembles the stomach , was widely used to treat indigestion and other stomach ailments . A number of European scholars , including pioneers in modern toxicology and botany , were attracted to the DOS . was one of the earliest proponents of the DOS and contended that theory was too limited to account for the scope and complexity of human ailments . Like many of that era , he maintained that health and eating were best achieved in union with the , like other supporters of the DOS , believed that the spiritual essence of all things ( including food ) were best understood by studying their material form as in nature . For scholars of that generation , the many ders of the natural World , including humans and food , were considered a microcosm of the divine , connected by a universal chain of symmetry ( or similitude ) As explains , humans and the natural world were two twins who resemble one another completely , without it being possible for anyone to say which of them brought its similitude to the other Epochal understandings of nutrition were merely an extension of this spiritual paradigm . As a theory of food , the DOS was eventually replaced and debunked . According to historians and anthropologists , the DOS is best understood as a mnemonic method for recalling and classifying a wide range of curative plants , especially in ate societies common to the Middle Moreover , in highly spiritual societies , the DOS was rather fancied by men than Pearce 2008 , 51 1999 , 174 . Quoted in 1970 , 20 . Bennett 2007 , 249 . 304 NUTRITION PARADIGMS

designed by Nature , 19 understood in today terms as a kind of confirmation bias . Despite the paradigmatic shift away from the DOS , elements of the similarity framework persisted . Into the and centuries , red wine was thought to strengthen the blood and was often given to the ill . Likewise , meat was necessary for manual work needed to be replenished with muscle tissue . Even today , walnuts ( like other nuts ) are high in fatty acids and are thus beneficial to brain function , and gingerroot is still widely used ( by both and Eastern medicine ) to treat indigestion and upset . Finally , near claim that it is the dose that makes the poison was foundational to the ment of modern understandings of toxicology and immunology , which rely on the homeopathic logic developed in the While sight continued to play a formative role in the incumbent paradigm of modern , how one came to see food , and correspondingly , what came to be seen , changed extensively in the era of scientific nutrition . Modem Commonplace by contemporary Western standards , scientific understandings of food date back to the chemical revolution in France at the end of the century . The identification of chemical properties and the development of methods of ical analysis led to quantitative ideas concerning food and how food was used by the body and departed substantially from the similarity and paradigms of previous eras . In 1827 , summing up the work of chemists of the past three decades , the English biochemist , William , divided foods into three substances saccharine ( sweet ) oily , and ( resembling animal protein ) These classifications 19 . Ray 1717 , quoted in Bennett 2007 , 251 . 20 . 1999 , 174 . 305

21 . 22 . 23 . would later come to be reclassified as carbohydrates , fats , and proteins , respectively , and form the basis of a macronutrient approach to Food was no longer understood in terms of its or morphological characteristics , but instead by its internal nutrient properties , launching an empirical focus into the study of food . The next building block in the scientific understanding of diet was the small unit , but immeasurable force , of the calorie . Derived from the Latin word calor , meaning heat , the unit of the calorie was used to measure the energy contained in food and burned by the By the end of the century , German and American scientists led the study of the energy content of various foods and the amount of energy expended during a range of activities . In both countries , considerations about which foods most efficiently maximized human energy were largely focused on questions of Using a calorimeter , American chemist Wilbur Atwater measured the caloric composition of food , ing to decipher which foods maximized human energy at the cheapest costs . As Atwater , en cents spent for beef sirloin at 20 cents a pound buys pounds of meat , which pound of protein , pound of fat , and 515 of energy available to the body These measurements were used to advance empirical understandings of food but also to continue differentiating and food and ies . As explains , early nutrition science aimed for the precision of physics and chemistry , but was confronted with the enormous variability of its subjects , objects , and external circumstances , and with discrepancies between the artificially controlled conditions of the lab and the variable conditions of 2013 , 54 . 2006 , 2957 . 2017 , 32 . Atwater 1902 , quoted in 2009 , 40 . 306 NUTRITION PARADIGMS

25 . 26 . 27 . 28 . human life In a relatively short period of time , a good diet , which was once understood as a matter of balance broadly defined , aimed to be both uniform and quantified . As transformational as the caloric model of food was , however , it failed to account for the persistence of scurvy and other illnesses that continued to plague Europe and North America at the turn of the In 1912 , the Polish biochemist Funk hypothesized that , pellagra , scurvy , and rickets were caused by unknown food deficiencies . He went on to pose that these deficiencies were a result of a lack of vital , which he shortened to vitamins since not all vitamins were For the next 30 years , beginning with Elmer lum work on accessory food factors A and ( later renamed vitamins A and ) vitamins including , folic acid , and vitamin were the central focus of nutritional research and had both replaced and challenged the prior , singular focus on the Even today , vitamins are hailed as protective agents against disease as well as for their broader promises of health . In a matter of a couple hundred years , the dominant food of Enlightenment Europe had swung from holism to , from to homogenization , localization to standardization , from to ven , and from one largely concerned with quality to one focused on quantity . What was once , contingent , and complex , became increasingly ordered , trolled , and understood though measurable 29 Coining the term , Australian food theorist individualization from 2017 , 29 . 2013 , 63 . Carpenter 2003 , 3023 . 2013 , 64 . 2009 , 307

30 . 31 . highlights the reductive nature of empirical understandings of nutrition . While scientific understandings of nutrition have yielded valuable insights into human health , the focus on internal biochemical components of food has also led to the , simplification , and exaggeration of the role of ents in determining bodily 30 Culturally , we have swung so far to the role of nutrients , calories , and vitamins , that we have decentralized foods as a whole , the diet of which they are a part , and the broader social , cultural , and economic in which they are embedded . DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS By tracing the broad shifts in historic of food edge , this chapter sets up the ways that nutritional knowledge is far from continuous and has paradigms . The language of nutrients , calories , and vitamins , while near ubiquitous by contemporary Western standards , was unknown to past populations . Likewise , the tic , descriptive understandings of food have been , for the most part , replaced . Using the French philosopher Michel helpful concept of a history of the present , the overview of nutritional paradigms offered here provides a critical orientation on how current understandings of healthy eating have come to be constructed . As David Garland history of the present is not intended to judge ical concepts through contemporary values , nor is it meant to reimagine the past in new ways . As its name suggests , a history of the present is a means of critically engaging with and standing how the contemporary moment has come to be shaped . 2013 , 1997 , 31 . Garland 2014 , 367 . 308 NUTRITION PARADIGMS

A critical questioning of current food paradigms , I contend , is beneficial for two reasons . First , rather than accepting current of nutrition as static truths , these truths should be positioned as one historical paradigm among others . How we eat today , and prospectively how we will eat in the future , are thus contingent and actively shaped by shifting knowledge paradigms . As new nutritional information emerges , our Western collective standings of nutrition will also change . Researchers , for example , are only beginning to understand the role of our gut biome in human health , factors previously unstudied in Newer nutritional studies are also only beginning to include situational factors that affect health , such as genetic disposition , hormone levels , life stage , medications , environmental toxins , and gut bacteria , but these factors are far from the norm in mainstream food research . What other discovered food , bodily , illness , or environmental will alter our currently held views of nutrition ?

Only time will tell , but if the history of nutrition yields any guidance , it probable that nutrition paradigms will continue to change and evolve as new become available . Second , by food truths , we can social , cultural , familial , ecological , relational , and textual food truths . While understandings of food worked well to mitigate deficiency diseases of the early , the same model does not equally apply to the many chronic health concerns affecting Western societies in record numbers The increase ( not decrease ) in diseases of the century indicates shortcomings of a strictly food paradigm . Such a paradigm fails to account for the 33 . 2015 , 34 . Thompson 2014 , 309

social conditions affecting human health , including but not to the accessibility and of healthy food , able housing , a secure neighbourhood , a guaranteed minimum income , job security , air quality , access to clean water , stress care and mental health , and social inclusion . Many of these factors are considered social of health . In focusing too intently on what we eat , we overlook other questions of healthy eating relevant to contemporary food and social inequality . As we move towards new food paradigms , I hope we learn to better balance social of health alongside food truths , to create a more complete picture of the role of food and eating in our lives . CONCLUSIONS Before looking into the history of food , I did not fully consider why we eat the way we eat . Before studying food as a social object , I did not think that intently about the social or historical contingency of what I routinely found on my plate . The more I studied food and its history , the more I saw how much of what we eat , when we eat , and how we eat is inextricably linked to how we see , understand , and ultimately know food . As history has shown , how we understand nutrition profoundly affects our to we consume , how much , and in what nations . Organ ( or offal ) meats , for example , used to be a routine food item on the plates of many Canadians , but are much less popular today . History has also shown that what we eat and sider healthy is continually shifting , not only because our texts of health are likewise shifting , but also because our food paradigms are in themselves in , reflecting dominant ideas of the time . As we continue to move towards new nutritional , refining and augmenting what we already know about food , health , and the human body , my borrow from 310 NUTRITION PARADIGMS

Geoffrey that we continue to maintain one piece of long history to value it as science as well as a Discussion Questions Do you agree or disagree with Lisa ment that the unexamined meal is not worth ing ?

36 your answer . What does a historical analysis of food provide ?

Take a moment to consider how scientific standings of food affect how , what , and why you eat . What patterns or trends do you notice in your own life ?

Can you identify elements of food and eating not captured by a paradigm ?

What are some examples of medicine or the doctrine of signatures that remain in circulation today ?

How do these paradigms encourage a relationship to food that the scientific of modern ?

What factors do you think would be important to highlight in the next regime of nutritional edge ?

How might these factors augment previous understandings of food and healthy eating ?

Exercise 35 . Cannon 2002 , 503 . 36 . 2006 . 311 Pick a meal you recently eaten , or perhaps one you eat often . This can be an everyday meal or a ceremonial one . What do you notice most about the meal ?

How is the meal usually , presented , or served ?

What language do you use to describe the meal to others ?

How do you understand the foods included ?

Which of the three historical food paradigms helps you best understand or describe your selected meal ?

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On and their Critical Punishment Society 16 . 2016 . Food and Health in Early Modern Diet , cine and Society , London Academic . 2006 . History of the Calorie in The nal 136 . 2006 . The Unexamined Meal is Not Worth Eating Or , Why and How Philosophers ( Do ) Study Food , Culture ?

Society . A . 2021 ) Shifting Food Facts Dietary Discourse in a Truth Culture . New York . and Thompson , 2014 . Is Nutritional Advocacy Morally Indigestible ?

A Critical Analysis of the Scientific and Ethical Implications of Healthy Food Choice Discourse in eral Public Health Ethic . 313 , 2009 . Measured Meals Nutrition in America . Albany State University of New York Press . 2017 . Nutritional Knowledge between the Lab and the Field The Search for Dietary Norms in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries , in Setting Nutritional Standards Theories , Policies , Practices , ed . Elizabeth , David Smith , and Ulrike Thorns , Rochester Rochester University Press . Pearce , 2008 . The Doctrine of European 60 ( 2008 ) 1999 . The Doctrine of Signatures A Historical , Philosophical and Scientific British Homeopathic journal 88 . 2013 . The Science and Politics of Dietary Advice . New York Columbia University Press . 314 NUTRITION PARADIGMS