Proteins, Pathologies and Politics: Dietary Innovation and Disease from the Nineteenth Century

Description

Proteins, Pathologies and Politics presents an international and historical approach to dietary change and health, contrasting current concerns with how issues such as diabetes, cancer, vitamins, sugar and fat, and food allergies were perceived in the 19th and 20th centuries. Though what we eat and what we shouldn't eat has become a topic of increased scrutiny in the current century, the link between dietary innovation and health/disease is not a new one. From new fads in foodstuffs, through developments in manufacturing and production processes, to the inclusion of additives and evolving agricultural practices changing diet, changes often promised better health only to become associated with the opposite. With contributors including Peter Scholliers, Francesco Buscemi, Clare Gordon Bettencourt, and Kirsten Gardner, this collection comprises the best scholarship on how we have perceived diet to affect health. The chapters consider: - the politics and economics of dietary change - the historical actors involved in dietary innovation and the responses to it - the extent that our dietary health itself a cultural construct, or even a product of history This is a fascinating and varied study of how our diets have been shaped and influenced by perceptions of health and will be of great value to students of history, food history, nutrition science, politics and sociology.

David Gentilcore is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leicester, UK. He is the author of Pomodoro! (2010) and Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy (2006). Matthew Smith is Professor of Health History at the University of Strathclyde's Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, UK. He is the author of An Alternative History of Hyperactivity (2011), Hyperactive (2012) and Another Person's Poison (2015).

Proteins, Pathologies and Politics makes an important contribution to histories of food and nutrition, and more broadly, health and science. Each chapter can be consumed on its own as a snack or as part of the whole as a well-balanced meal, and each ... provides a great deal of insight into how what we ate can often tell us about who we were. * Pharmacy in History * This volume features papers from a 2016 conference that offer compelling narratives of food and health within contexts of changing ideologies, economics, industrialization, and gender roles over almost 200 years ... The volume is well framed by an introduction and a final chapter on the ambivalence that remains over food additives. All chapters are well-written and extensively referenced, with 44 pages of endnotes and a 30-page bibliography ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals. * CHOICE * Proteins, Pathologies and Politics provides striking insights into the historically complex relationships between diet and nutrition. * RIMA D. APPLE, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON, USA * This collection of essays by leading international scholars includes the latest historical research on food and nutrition, and will help unpack the jargon that has become as much a part of our daily lives as the contents of our diets. * JONATHAN REINARZ, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM, UK * This book has a terrific range of scholars and topics, and does a great job framing the history of food in a way that speaks to current concerns. * ERIKA RAPPAPORT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA, USA * Proteins, Pathologies and Politics is an excellent exploration of the political, social, cultural, philosophical and economic factors that helped shape the development of nutritional science. * IAN MILLER, ULSTER UNIVERSITY, UK *