Eating and Healing Traditional Food As Medicine

Discover neglected wild food sources—that can also be used as medicine!The long-standing notion of “food as medicine, medicine as food,” can be traced back to Hippocrates. Eating and Healing: Traditional Food As Medicine is a global overview of wild and semi-domesticated foods and their use as medicine in traditional societies. Important cultural information, along with extensive case studies, provides a clear, authoritative look at the many neglected food sources still being used around the world today. This book bridges the scientific disciplines of medicine, food science, human ecology, and environmental sciences with their ethno-scientific counterparts of ethnobotany, ethnoecology, and ethnomedicine to provide a valuable multidisciplinary resource for education and instruction.Eating and Healing: Traditional Food As Medicine presents respected researchers in-depth case studies on foods different cultures use as medicines and as remedies for nutritional deficiencies in diet. Comparisons of living conditions in different geographic areas as well as differences in diet and medicines are thoroughly discussed and empirically evaluated to provide scientific evidence of the many uses of these traditional foods as medicine and as functional foods. The case studies focus on the uses of plants, seaweed, mushrooms, and fish within their cultural contexts while showing the dietary and medical importance of these foods. The book provides comprehensive tables, extensive references, useful photographs, and helpful illustrations to provide clear scientific support as well as opportunities for further thought and study. Eating and Healing: Traditional Food As Medicine explores the ethnobiology of: Tibet—antioxidants as mediators of high-altitude nutritional physiology Northeast Thailand—“wild” food plant gathering Southern Italy—the consumption of wild plants by Albanians and Italians Northern Spain—medicinal digestive beverages United States—medicinal herb quality Commonwealth of Dominica—humoral medicine and food Cuba—promoting health through medicinal foods Brazil—medicinal uses of specific fishes Brazil—plants from the Amazon and Atlantic Forest Bolivian Andes—traditional food medicines New Patagonia—gathering of wild plant foods with medicinal uses Western Kenya—uses of traditional herbs among the Luo people South Cameroon—ethnomycology in Africa Morocco—food medicine and ethnopharmacologyEating and Healing: Traditional Food As Medicine is an essential research guide and educational text about food and medicine in traditional societies for educators, students from undergraduate through graduate levels, botanists, and research specialists in nutrition and food science, anthropology, agriculture, ethnoecology, ethnobotany, and ethnobiology.

About the Editors Contributors Copyright Acknowledgments Introduction (Andrea Pieroni and Lisa Leimar Price) Asia Europe North America The Caribbean South America Africa Chapter 1. Edible Wild Plants As Food and As Medicine: Reflections on Thirty Years of Fieldwork (Louis E. Grivetti) Introduction Genesis Three Decades of Ethnobotanical Research Reflections and Potential Research Areas Coda Chapter 2. Tibetan Foods and Medicines: Antioxidants As Mediators of High-Altitude Nutritional Physiology (Patrick L. Owen) Introduction Adaptations to Altitude Oxidative Stress and Antioxidants Tibetan High-Altitude Food Systems Tibetan Medicine Summary Chapter 3. Wild Food Plants in Farming Environments with Special Reference to Northeast Thailand, Food As Function and Medicinal, and Social Roles of Women (Lisa Leimar Price) Introduction Wild Plant Foods in the Farming Environment Womens Roles, Womens Work, and Womens Knowledge Consumption and Nutrition Overlaps: Medicinal and Functional Food Medicinal and Functional Food Wild Plants of Northeast Thailand Gathered Food Plants of Northeast Thailand with Medicinal Value Investigations of Wild Plant Foods As Functional/Medicinal Foods in Thailand Multiple Use Value, Rarity, and Privatization Conclusions Chapter 4. Functional Foods or Food Medicines? On the Consumption of Wild Plants Among Albanians and Southern Italians in Lucania (Andrea Pieroni and Cassandra L. Quave) Introduction Ethnographic Background Field Methods Wild Food and Medicinal Plants in Lucania Pharmacology of Wild Functional Foods Consumed in Southern Italy Conclusion Chapter 5. Digestive Beverages As a Medicinal Food in a Cattle-Farming Community in Northern Spain (Campoo, Cantabria) (Manuel Pardo de Santayana, Elia San Miguel, and Ramón Morales) Introduction Changes in Food and Health Habits and Conditions Medicinal Food: Digestive Beverages Conclusions Chapter 6. “The Forest and the Seaweed”: Gitgaat Seaweed, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Community Survival (Nancy J. Turner and Helen Clifton) Introduction Seaweed Use Worldwide Gitgaat Seaweed Use The Forest and the Seaweed Back Home in Hartley Bay Conclusion Chapter 7. Medicinal Herb Quality in the United States: Bridging Perspectives with Chinese Medical Theory (Craig A. Hassel, Christopher A. Hafner, Renne Soberg, and Jeff Adelmann) Context from a Biomedical Perspective Context from a Chinese Medical Theory Perspective Dilemma of “Integrating” Two Divergent Epistemologies Founding a Medicinal Herb Network Chapter 8. Balancing the System: Humoral Medicine and Food in the Commonwealth of Dominica (Marsha B. Quinlan and Robert J. Quinlan) Introduction Setting Methods Results and Discussion Conclusion Chapter 9. Medicinal Foods in Cuba: Promoting Health in the Household (Gabriele Volpatoand Daimy Godinez) Introduction Results and Discussion Conclusions Chapter 10. Healthy Fish: Medicinal and Recommended Species in the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest Coast (Brazil) (Alpina Begossi, Natalia Hanazaki, and Rossano M. Ramos) Introduction Methods Results and Discussion Conclusions Chapter 11. Edible and Healing Plants in the Ethnobotany of Native Inhabitants of the Amazon and Atlantic Forest Areas of Brazil (Natalia Hanazaki, Nivaldo Peroni, and Alpina Begossi) Introduction Study Site and Methods Results and Discussion Conclusions Appendix Chapter 12. Food Medicines in the Bolivian Andes (Apillapampa, Cochabamba Department) (Ina Vandebroek and Sabino Sanca) Introduction Study Area Ethnographic Data Methodology Results and Discussion Conclusion Chapter 13. Gathering of Wild Plant Foods with Medicinal Use in a Mapuche Community of Northwest Patagonia (Ana H. Ladio) Introduction Study Area Methods Results Discussion Chapter 14. Dietary and Medicinal Use of Traditional Herbs Among the Luo of Western Kenya (Charles Ogoye-Ndegwa and Jens Aagaard-Hansen) Introduction Materials and Methods Results Discussion Conclusion Chapter 15. Ethnomycology in Africa, with Particular Reference to the Rain Forest Zone of South Cameroon (Thomas W. Kuyper) Introduction Mycophilia versus Mycophobia Overview of Mushroom Use in Africa Mushroom Knowledge and Utilization by Bantu and Bagyeli in South Cameroon Mushrooms: Meat of the Poor Chapter 16. Aspects of Food Medicine and Ethnopharmacology in Morocco (Mohamed Eddouks) Introduction Food Medicine Phytotherapy Conclusions Index Reference Notes Included

Andrea Pieroni, Lisa Price