Food cults : how fads, dogma, and doctrine influence diet / edited by Kima Cargill.

Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2017]
Description
vi, 271 pages ; 24 cm.

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    Summary note
    Because beliefs and practices surrounding food often inspire religious and political fervor, in addition to uniting people into insular groups, it is inevitable that "food cults" will 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, part of a 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 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, as well as the social and psychological functions they serve. The contributors here describe how contemporary and historic food communities come together and foment fanaticism, judgment, charisma, dogma, passion, longevity, condemnation, and exaltation. -- from back cover.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references and index.
    Contents
    • The psychology of food cults / Kima Cargill
    • The allure of food cults : balancing pseudoscience and healthy skepticism / Leighann R. Chaffee and Corey L. Cook
    • Food practices in early Christianity / Paul A. Brazinski
    • Longevity diets in historical perspective / Ken Albala
    • Juicing : language, ritual, and placebo sociality in a community of extreme eaters / Samuel Veissière and Liona Gibbs-Bravo
    • Contemporary superfood cults : nutritionism, neoliberalism and gender / Tina Sikka
    • Gluttons galore : a rising faction in food discourses and dining experiences / Carlnita P. Greene
    • Caving in : the appeal of the paleo diet in the wake of 9/11 / Lenore Bell
    • "Of bananas and cavemen" : unlikely similarities between two online food communities / Amanda Maxfield and Andrea Rissing
    • Eschew your food : foodies, healthism and the elective restrictive diet / Michele Scott
    • Breaking bread : the clashing cults of sourdough and gluten-free / L. Sasha Gora
    • The gluten-free cult : a world without wheat / Jennifer Martin
    • Erasure of indigenous food memories and (re-)imaginations / Preety Gadhoke and Barrett P. Brenton
    • "Herb is for the healing of the nation!" : marijuana as a consumable vegetable among ghetto Muslim youth of Maamobi in Accra, Ghana / De-Valera N.Y.M. Botchway and Charles Prempeh
    • What makes a good mother? : mother's conceptions of good food / Liora Gvion and Irit Sharir.
    ISBN
    • 9781442251311 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
    • 144225131X ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2016027109
    OCLC
    953708350
    Other standard number
    • 40026704549
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