Helen Macbeth – författare

“This important volume sheds new light on the social, political, and economic role of beer in society.... Highly Recommended.”—Choice

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book of The Year 2011Winner of the 2011 Gourmand World Cookbook UK Award

Beer is an ancient alcoholic drink which, although produced through a more complex process than wine, was developed by a wide range of cultures to become internationally popular. This book is the first multidisciplinary, cross-cultural collection about beer. It explores the brewing processes used in antiquity and in traditional societies; the social and symbolic roles of beer-drinking; the beliefs and activities associated with it; the health-promoting effects as well as the health-damaging risks; and analyses the modern role of large multinational companies, which own many of the breweries, and the marketing techniques that they employ.

From the introduction:What made you pick up this book? Was it the thought of that foaming pint while you relaxed in a British pub, a German beer garden, a Czech restaurant, an American or ‘Continental’ bar, on a beach or ski slope or in front of the television at home? Wherever your beer was purchased, in much of the world you would have been offered choice. The choice might only have been between different brand names of bottled beer, or it might have been between a wide range of ales, lagers, wheat and other beers from a cask, a keg, cans or bottles. Even people who do not drink beer will be aware of this diversity….the editors believe that this collation of perspectives on beer will also intrigue many readers in the general public.

Everyday, millions of people eat earth, clay, nasal mucus, and similar substances. Yet food practices like these are strikingly understudied in a sustained, interdisciplinary manner. This book aims to correct this neglect. Contributors, utilizing anthropological, nutritional, biochemical, psychological and health-related perspectives, examine in a rigorously comparative manner the consumption of foods conventionally regarded as inedible by most Westerners. This book is both timely and significant because nutritionists and health care professionals are seldom aware of anthropological information on these food practices, and vice versa. Ranging across diversity of disciplines Consuming the Inedible surveys scientific and local views about the consequences - biological, mineral, social or spiritual - of these food practices, and probes to what extent we can generalize about them.

In modern multicultural societies, the topic of ''health and ethnicity'' has become increasingly recognised as highly relevant. All too frequently, academic coverage of the topic has been scattered in specialist literature of different disciplines; a book bringing these perspectives together has so far been lacking.

The aim of the book is to explain the diversity in health experience due to determinants and factors that can be described as ''ethnic''. Both ''ethnicity'' and ''health'' are words that have stimulated semantic debate, and yet too seldom is sufficient sensitivity given over to the complexity of the issue.

In modern multicultural societies, the topic of ''health and ethnicity'' has become increasingly recognised as highly relevant. All too frequently, academic coverage of the topic has been scattered in specialist literature of different disciplines; a book bringing these perspectives together has so far been lacking.

The aim of the book is to explain the diversity in health experience due to determinants and factors that can be described as ''ethnic''. Both ''ethnicity'' and ''health'' are words that have stimulated semantic debate, and yet too seldom is sufficient sensitivity given over to the complexity of the issue.

Food preferences and tastes are among the fundamentals affecting human existence; the sociocultural, physiological and neurological factors involved have therefore been widely researched and are well documented. However, information and debate on these factors are scattered across the academic literature of different disciplines. In this volume cross-disciplinary perspectives are brought together by an international team of contributors that includes socialand biological anthropologists, ethologists and ethnologists, psychologists, neurologists and zoologists in order to provide access to the different specialisms on the topic.

The availability of food is an especially significant issue in zones of conflict because conflict nearly always impinges on the production and the distribution of food, and causes increased competition for food, land and resources Controlling the production of and access to food can also be used as a weapon by protagonists in conflict. The logistics of supply of food to military personnel operating in conflict zones is another important issue. These themes unite this collection, the chapters of which span different geographic areas. This volume will appeal to scholars in a number of different disciplines, including anthropology, nutrition, political science, development studies and international relations, as well as practitioners working in the private and public sectors, who are currently concerned with food-related issues in the field.

The term ''Anthropology of Food'' has become an accepted abbreviation for the study of anthropological perspectives on food, diet and nutrition, an increasingly important subdivision of anthropology that encompasses a rich variety of perspectives, academic approaches, theories, and methods. Its multi-disciplinary nature adds to its complexity. This is the first publication to offer guidance for researchers working in this diverse and expanding field of anthropology.

Sustainability is one of the great problems facing food production today. Using cross-disciplinary perspectives from international scholars working in social, cultural and biological anthropology, ecology and environmental biology, this volume brings many new perspectives to the problems we face.  Its cross-disciplinary framework of chapters with local, regional and continental perspectives provides a global outlook on sustainability issues. These case studies will appeal to those working in public sector agencies, NGOs, consultancies and other bodies focused on food security, human nutrition and environmental sustainability.