You Are What You Eat:
Religious
Aspects
of the Health Food Movement
Jill Dubisch Reprinted by permission of the author.
Dr. Robbins was thinking how it might be interesting to make a film from Adelle
Davis' perennial best seller, Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit. Representing a
classic confrontation between good and evil--in this case nutrition versus unhealthy
diet--the story had definite box office appeal. The role of the hero. Protein, probably
should be filled by Jim Brown, although Burt Reynolds undoubtedly would pull strings
to get the part. Sunny Doris Day would be a clear choice to play the heroine, Vitamin
C, and Orson Welles, oozing saturated fatty acids from the pits of his flesh, could
win an Oscar for his interpretation of the villainous Cholesterol. The film might
begin on a stormy night in the central nervous system... • --Tom Robbins, Even
Cowgirls Get the Blues
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
I intend to examine a certain way of eating; that which is characteristic of
the health food movement, and try to determine what people are communicating when
they choose to eat in ways which run counter to the dominant patterns of food consumption
in our society. This requires looking at health foods as a system of symbols and
the adherence to a health food way of life as being, in part, the expression of belief
in a particular world view. Analysis of these symbols and the underlaying world view
reveals that, as a system of beliefs and practices, the health food movement has
some of the characteristics of a religion. Such an interpretation might at first
seem strange since we usually think of religion in terms of a belief in a deity or
other supernatural beings. These notions, for the most part, are lacking in the health
food movement. However, anthropologists do not always consider such beliefs to be
a necessary part of a religion. Clifford Geertz, for example, suggests the following
broad definition:
A religion is:
HISTORY OF THE HEALTH FOOD MOVEMENT
The concept of "health foods" can be traced back to the 1830s and the
Popular Health movement, which combined a reaction against professional medicine
and an emphasis on lay knowledge and health care with broader social concerns such
as feminism and the class struggle (see Ehrenreich and English 1979). The Popular
Health movement emphasized self-healing and the dissemination of knowledge about
the body and health to laymen. One of the early founders of the movement, Sylvester
Graham (who gave us the graham cracker), preached that good health was to be found
in temperate living. This included abstinence from alcohol, a vegetarian diet, consumption
of whole wheat products, and regular exercise.
The writings and preachings of these early "hygienists" (as they called
themselves) often had moral overtones, depicting physiological and spiritual reform
as going hand in hand (Shryock 1966). The idea that proper diet can contribute to
good health has continued into the twentieth century. The discovery of vitamins provided
for many health food people a further "natural" means of healing which
could be utilized instead of drugs. Vitamins were promoted as health-giving substances
by various writers, including nutritionist Adelle Davis, who has been perhaps the
most important "guru" of health foods in this century. Davis preached good
diet as well as the use of vitamins to restore and maintain health, and her books
have become the best sellers of the movement. (The titles of her books. Let's
Cook It Right, Let's Get Well, Let's Have Healthy Children, give some sense of
her approach.) The health food movement took on its present form, however, during
the late 1960s, when it became part of the "counterculture." Health foods
were "in," and their consumption became part of the general protest against
the "establishment" and the "straight" life-style. They were
associated with other movements centering around social concerns, such as ecology
and consumerism (Kandel and Felto 1980:328).
In contrast to the Popular Health movement, health food advocates of the sixties
saw the establishment as not only the medical profession but also the food industry
and the society it represented. Food had become highly processed and laden with colorings,
preservatives, and other additives so that purity of food became a new issue. Chemicals
had also become part of the food-growing process, and in reaction terms such as "organic"
and "natural" became watchwords of the movement. Health food consumption
received a further impetus from revelations about the high sugar content of many
popular breakfast cereals which Americans had been taught since childhood to think
of as a nutritious way to start the day. (Kellogg, an early advocate of the Popular
Health movement, would have been mortified, since his cereals were originally designed
to be part of a hygienic regimen.) Although some health food users are members of
formal groups (such as the Natural Hygiene Society, which claims direct descent from
Sylvester Graham), the movement exists primarily as a set of principles and practices
rather than as an organization.
For those not part of organized groups, these principles and practices are disseminated,
and contact is made with other members of the movement, through several means. The
most important of these are health food stores, restaurants, and publications. The
two most prominent journals in the movement are Prevention and Let's Live,
begun in 1920 and 1932 respectively (Hongladarom 1976). These journals tell people
what foods to eat and how to prepare them. They offer advice about the use of vitamins,
the importance of exerdse, and the danger of pollutants. They also present testimonials
from faithful practitioners. Such testimonials take the form of articles that recount
how the author overcame a physical problem through a health food approach, or
letters from readers who tell how they have cured their ailments by following
methods advocated by the journal or suggested by friends in the movement. In this
manner, such magazines not only educate, they also articulate a world view and provide
evidence and support for it. They have become the "sacred writings" of
the movement. They are a way of "reciting the code"-- the cosmology and
moral injunctions--which anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace describes as one of
the important categories of religious behavior (1966:57).
IDEOLOGICAL CONTENT OF THE HEALTH FOOD MOVEMENT
What exactly is the health food system? First, and most obviously, it centers
around certain beliefs regarding the relationship of diet to health. Health foods
are seen as an "alternative" healing system, one which people turn to out
of their dissatisfaction with conventional medicine (see, for example, Hongladarom
1976). The emphasis is on "wellness" and prevention rather than on illness
and curing. Judging from letters and articles found in health food publications,
many individuals' initial adherence to the movement is a type of conversion. A specific
medical problem, or a general dissatisfaction with the state of their health, leads
these converts to an eventual realization of the "truth" as represented
by the health food approach, and to a subsequent change in life-style to reflect
the principles of that approach. "Why This Psychiatrist 'Switched'" published
in Prevention (September 1976), carries the following heading: "Dr. H.
L. Newbold is a great advocate of better nutrition and a livelier life style. But
it took a personal illness to make him see the light."
For those who have experienced
such conversion, and for others who become convinced by reading about such experiences,
health food publications serve an important function by reinforcing the conversion
and encouraging a change of life-style. For example, an article entitled "How
to Convert Your Kitchen for the New Age of Nutrition" (Prevention, February
1975) tells the housewife how to make her kitchen a source of health for her family.
The article suggests ways of reorganizing kitchen supplies and reforming cooking
by substituting health foods for substances detrimental to health, and also offers
ideas on the preparation of nutritious and delicious meals which will convert the
family to this new way of eating without "alienating" them. The pamphlet
The Junk Food Withdrawal Manual (Kline 1978), details how an individual can,
step by step, quit eating junk foods and adopt more healthful eating habits.
Publications
also urge the readers to convert others by letting them know how much better health
foods are than junk foods. Proselytizing may take the form of giving a "natural"
birthday party for one's children and their friends, encouraging schools to substitute
fruit and nuts for junk food snacks, and even selling one's own baking.
Undergoing
the conversion process means learning and accepting the general features of the health
food world view. To begin with, there is great concern, as there is in many religions,
with purity, in this case, the purity of food, of water, of air. In fact, there are
some striking similarities between keeping a "health food kitchen" and
the Jewish practice of keeping kosher. Both make distinctions between proper and
improper foods, and both involve excluding certain impure foods (whether unhealthful
or non-kosher) from the kitchen and table. In addition, a person concerned with maintaining
a high degree of purity in food may engage in similar behavior in either case reading
labels carefully to check for impermissible ingredients and even purchasing food
from special establishments to guarantee ritual purity.
In the health food movement,
the basis of purity is healthfulness and "naturalness." Some foods are
considered to be natural and therefore healthier; this concept applies not only to
foods but to other aspects of life as well. It is part of the large idea that people
should work in harmony with nature and not against it. In this respect, the health
food cosmology sets up an opposition of nature (beneficial) versus culture (destructive),
or, in particular, the health food movement against our highly technological society.
As products of our industrialized way of life, certain foods are unnatural; they
produce illness by working against the body. Consistent with this view is the idea
that healing, like eating, should proceed in harmony with nature. The assumption
is that the body, if allowed to function naturally, will tend to heal itself.
Orthodox
medicine, on the other hand, with its drugs and surgery and its non-holistic approach
to health, works against the body. Physicians are frequently criticized in the literature
of the movement for their narrow approach to medical problems, reliance on drugs
and surgery, lack of knowledge of nutrition, and unwillingness to accept the validity
of the patient's own experience in healing himself. It is believed that doctors may
actually cause further health problems rather than effecting a cure. A short item
in Prevention, "The Delivery Is Normal-- But the Baby Isn't," recounts
an incident in which drug-induced labor in childbirth resulted in a mentally retarded
baby. The conclusion is "nature does a good job--and we should not, without compelling
reasons, try to take over" (Prevention, May 1979:38).
The healing process
is hastened by natural substances, such as healthful food, and by other "natural"
therapeutic measures such as exercise. Vitamins are also very important to many health
food people, both for maintaining health and for healing. They are seen as
components of food which work with the body and are believed to offer a more natural
mode of healing than drugs. Vitamins, often one of the most prominent products offered
in many health food stores, provide the greatest source of profit (Hongladarom 1976).
A basic assumption of the movement is that certain foods are good for you while others
are not. The practitioner of a health food way of life must learn to distinguish
between two kinds of food: those which promote well-being ("health foods")
and those which are believed to be detrimental to health ("junk foods"),
The former are the only kind of food a person should consume, while the latter are
the antithesis of all that food should be and must be avoided.
The qualities of these foods may be described by two anthropological concepts, mana
and taboo.
Mana is a type of beneficial or valuable power which can pass to individuals from
sacred objects through touch (or, in the case of health foods, by ingestion).
Taboo, on the other hand, refers to power that is dangerous; objects which are taboo
can injure those who touch them (Wallace 1966: 60-61).
Not all foods fall clearly
into one category or the other. However, those foods which are seen as having healthgiving
qualities, which contain mana, symbolize life, while taboo foods symbolize
death. ("Junk food is... dead... Dead food produces death," proclaims one
health food manual [Kline 1978:2-4].) Much of the space in health food publications
is devoted to telling the reader why to consume certain foods and avoid others ("Frozen,
Creamed Spinach: Nutritional Disaster," Prevention, May 1979; "Let's
Sprout Some Seeds," Better Nutrition, September 1979). Those foods in
the health food category which are deemed to possess an especially high level of
mana have come to symbolize the movement as a whole. Foods such as honey,
wheat germ, yogurt, and sprouts are seen as representative of the general way of
life which health food adherents advocate, and Kandel and Pelto found that certain
health food followers attribute mystical powers to the foods they consume. Raw food
eaters speak of the "life energy" in uncooked foods. Sprout eaters speak
of their food's "growth force" (1980:336). Qualities such as color and
texture are also important in determining health foods and may acquire symbolic value.
"Wholeness" and "whole grain" have come to stand for healthfulness
and have entered the jargon of the advertising industry. Raw, coarse, dark, crunchy,
and cloudy foods are preferred over those which are cooked, refined, white, soft,
and clear. (See chart.) Thus dark bread is preferred over white, raw milk over pasteurized,
brown rice over white. The convert must learn to eat foods which at first seem strange
and even exotic and to reject many foods which are components of the Standard American
diet. A McDonald's hamburger, for example, which is an important symbol of America
itself (Kottack 1978), falls into the category of "junk food" and must
be rejected. Just as the magazines and books which articulate the principles of the
health food movement and serve as a guide to the convert can be said to comprise
the sacred writings of the movement, so the health food store or health food restaurant
is the temple where the purity of the movement is guarded and maintained. There individuals
find for sale the types of food and other substances advocated by the movement. One
does not expect to find items of questionable purity, that is, substances which are
not natural or which may be detrimental to Health. Within the precincts of the temple
adherents can feel safe from the contaminating forces of the larger society, can
meet fellow devotees, and can be instructed by the guardians of the sacred area (see,
for example, Hongladarom 1976). Health food stores may vary in their degree of purity.
Some sell items such as coffee, raw sugar, or "natural" ice cream which
are considered questionable by others of the faith. (One health food store I visited
had a sign explaining that it did not sell vitamin supplements, which it considered
to be "unnatural," i.e., impure.)
People in other places are often viewed
as living more "naturally" and healthfully than contemporary Americans.
Observation of such peoples may be used to confirm practices of the movement and
to acquire ideas about food. Healthy and long-lived people like the Hunza of the
Himalayas are studied to determine the secrets of their strength and longevity. Cultures
as yet untainted by the food systems of industrialized nations are seen as examples
of what better diet can do. In addition, certain foods from other cultures--foods
such as humus, falafel, and tofu--have been adopted into the health food repertoire
because of their presumed healthful qualities. Peoples of other times can also serve
as models for a more healthful way of life. There is in the health food movement
a concept of a "golden age," a past which provides an authority for a better
way of living. This past may be scrutinized for clues about how to improve contemporary
American society. An archaeologist, writing for Prevention magazine, recounts
how "I Put Myself on a Caveman Diet--Permanently" (Prevention, September
1979). His article explains how he improved his health by utilizing the regular exercise
and simpler foods which he had concluded from his research were probably characteristic
of our prehistoric ancestors.
A general nostalgia about the past seems to exist in
the health food movement, along with the feeling that we have departed from a more
natural pattern of eating practiced by earlier generations ofAmericans (see, for
example, Hongladarom 1976). (Sylvester Graham, however, presumably did not find the
eating habits of his contemporaries to be very admirable.)
Health Food World View
Health Foods
Junk Foods
cosmic oppositions
LIFE, NATURE
DEATH, CULTURE
holistic, organic
fragmented, mechanistic
basic values and desirable attributes
harmony with body and nature
working against body and nature
undesirable attributes
natural and real
manufactured and artificial
harmony
disharmony
independence, self-sufficiency
dependence
homemade, small scale
mass-produced
layman competence and understanding
professional esoteric knowledge and jargon
whole
processed
coarse
refined
beneficial qualities of food
dark
white
harmful qualities
crunchy
soft
raw
cooked
cloudy
clear
yogurt*
ice cream, candy
honey*
sugar*
specific foods with mana
carob
chocolate
specific taboo foods
soybeans*
beef
sprouts*
overcooked vegetables
fruit juices
soft drinks*
herb teas
coffee*, tea
foods from other cultures:
"all-American" foods:
humus, falafel, kefir, tofu, stir-fried vegetables
hot dogs, McDonald's hamburgers*, Coke
pita bread
potato chips
return to early American values
corruption of this original
and better way of life
"real" American way of life and values
*Denotes foods with especially potent mana or taboo.
The health food movement is concerned with more than the achievement of bodily health.
Nutritional problems are often seen as being at the root of emotional, spiritual,
and even social problems. An article entitled "Sugar Neurosis" states "Hypoglycemia
(low blood sugar) is a medical reality that can trigger wife-beating, divorce, even
suicide" (Prevention, April 1979:110). Articles and books claim to show
the reader how to overcome depression through vitamins and nutrition and the movement
promises happiness and psychological well-being as well as physical health.
Social
problems, too, may respond to the health food approach. For example, a probation
officer recounts how she tried changing offenders' diets in order to change their
behavior. Testimonials from two of the individuals helped tell "what it was
like to find that good nutrition was their bridge from the wrong side of the law
and a frustrated, unhappy life to a vibrant and useful one" (Prevention,
May 1978:56).
Thus, through more healthful eating and a more natural life-style,
the health food movement offers its followers what many religions offer: salvation--in
this case salvation for the body, for the psyche, and for society.
Individual effort
is the keystone of the health food movement. An individual can take responsibility
for his or her own health and does not need to rely on professional medical practitioners.
The corollary of this is that it is a person's own behavior which may be the cause
of ill health. By sinning, by not listening to our bodies, and by not following a
natural way of life, we bring our ailments upon ourselves. The health food movement
also affirms the validity of each individual's experience. No two individuals are
alike: needs for different vitamins vary widely; some people are more sensitive to
food additives than others; each person has his or her best method of achieving happiness.
Therefore, the generalized expertise of professionals and the scientifically verifiable
findings of the experts may not be adequate guides for you, the individual, in the
search of health.
Each person's experience has meaning; if something works for you,
then it works. If it works for others also, so much the better, but if it does not,
that does not invalidate your own experience. While the movement does not by any
means disdain all scientific findings (and indeed they are used extensively when
they bolster health food positions), such findings are not seen as the only source
of confirmation for the way of life which the health food movement advocates, and
the scientific establishment itself tends to be suspect. In line with its emphasis
on individual responsibility for health, the movement seeks to deprofessionalize
knowledge and place in every individual's hands the information and means to heal.
Drugs used by doctors are usually available only through prescription, but foods
and vitamins can be obtained by anyone. Books, magazines, and health food store personnel
seek to educate their clientele in ways of healing themselves and maintaining their
own health. Articles explain bodily processes, the effects of various substances
on health, and the properties of foods and vitamins.
The focus on individual responsibility
is frequently tied to a wider concern for self-sufficiency and self-reliance. Growing
your own organic garden, grinding your own flour, or even, as one pamphlet suggests,
raising your own cow are not simply ways that one can be assured of obtaining healthful
food; they are also expressions of independence and selfreliance. Furthermore, such
practices are seen as characteristic of an earlier "golden age" when people
lived natural lives. For example, an advertisement for vitamins appearing in a digest
distributed in health food stores shows a mother and daughter kneading bread together.
The heading reads "America's discovering basics." The copy goes on, "Baking
bread at home has been a basic family practice throughout history. The past several
decades, however, have seen a shift in the American diet to factory-produced breads...
Fortunately, today there are signs that more and more Americans are discovering the
advantage of baking bread themselves." Homemade bread, home-canned produce,
sprouts growing on the window sill symbolize what are felt to be basic American values,
values supposedly predominant in earlier times when people not only lived on self-sufficient
farms and produced their own fresh and more natural food, but also stood firmly on
their own two feet and took charge of their own lives. A reader writing to Prevention
praises an article about a man who found "new life at ninety without lawyers
or doctors," saying "If that isn't the optimum in the American way of living,
I can't imagine what is!" (Prevention, May 1978:16).
Thus although it
criticizes the contemporary American way of life (and although some vegetarians turn
to Eastern religions for guidance--see Kandel and Pelto 1980), the health food movement
in general claims to be the true faith, the proponent of basic American-ness, a faith
from which the society as a whole has strayed.
SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HEALTH FOOD MOVEMENT FOR AMERICAN ACTORS
Being a "health food person" involves more than simply changing one's
diet or utilizing an alternative medical system. Kandel and Pelto suggest that the
health food movement derives much of its popularity from the fact that "food
may be used simultaneously to cure or prevent illness, as a religious symbol and
to forge social bonds. Frequently health food users are trying to improve their health,
their lives, and sometimes the world as well" (1980:332). Use of health foods
becomes an affirmation of certain values and a commitment to a certain world view.
A person who becomes involved in the health food movement might be said to experience
what anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace has called "mazeway resynthesis."
The "mazeway" is the mental "map" or image of the world which
each individual holds. It includes values, the environment and the objects in it,
the image of the self and of others, the techniques one uses to manipulate the environment
to achieve desired end states (Wallace 1966:237). Resynthesis of this mazeway--that
is, the creation of new "maps," values, and techniques--commonly occurs
in times of religious revitalization, when new religious movements are begun and
converts to them are made. As individuals, these converts leam to view the world
in a new manner and to act accordingly. In the case of the health food movement,
those involved learn to see their health problems and other dissatisfactions with
their lives as stemming from improper diet and living in disharmony with nature.
They are provided with new values, new ways of viewing their environment, and new
techniques for achieving their goals. For such individuals, health food use can come
to imply "a major redefinition of self-image, role, and one's relationship to
others" (Kandel and Pelto 1980:359). The world comes to "make sense"
in the light of this new world view. Achievement of the desired end states of better
health and an improved outlook on life through following the precepts of the movement
gives further validation.
It is this process which gives the health food movement
some of the overtones of a religion. As does any new faith, the movement criticizes
the prevailing social values and institutions, in this case the health threatening
features of modern industrial society. While an individual's initial dissatisfaction
with prevailing beliefs and practices may stem from experiences with the conventional
medical system (for example, failure to find a solution to a health problem through
visits to a physician), this dissatisfaction often comes to encompass other facets
of the American way of life. This further differentiates the "health food person"
from mainstream American society (even when the difference is justified as a return
to "real" American values).
In everyday life the consumption of such substances
as honey, yogurt, and wheat germ, which have come to symbolize the health food movement,
does more than contribute to health. It also serves to represent commitment to the
health food world view. Likewise, avoiding those substances, such as sugar and white
bread, which are considered "evil" is also a mark of a health food person.
Ridding the kitchen of such items--a move often advocated by articles advising readers
on how to "convert" successfully to health foods--is an act of ritual as
well as practical significance.
The symbolic nature of such foods is confirmed by
the reactions of outsiders to those who are perceived as being inside the movement.
An individual who is perceived as being a health food person is often automatically
assumed to use honey instead of sugar, for example. Conversely, if one is noticed
using or not using certain foods (e.g., adding wheat germ to food, not eating white
sugar), this can lead to questions from the observer as to whether or not that individual
is a health food person (or a health food "nut," depending upon the questioner's
own orientation). The symbolic nature of such foods is especially important for the
health food neophyte. The adoption of a certain way of eating and the renunciation
of mainstream cultural food habits can constitute "bridgeburning acts of commitment"
(Kandel and Pelto 1980:395), which function to cut the individual off from previous
patterns of behavior.
However, the symbolic activity which indicates this cutting
off need not be as radical as a total change of eating habits. In an interview in
Prevention, a man who runs'a health-oriented television program recounted
an incident in which a viewer called up after a show and announced excitedly that
he had changed his whole life-style--he had started using honey in his coffee! (Prevention,
February 1979:89). While recognizing the absurdity of the action on a practical level,
the program's host acknowledged the symbolic importance of this action to the person
involved. He also saw it as a step in the right direction since one change can lead
to another.
Those who sprinkle wheat germ on cereal, toss alfalfa sprouts with a
salad, or pass up an ice cream cone for yogurt are not only demonstrating a concern
for health but also affirming their commitment to a particular life-style and symbolizing
adherence to a set of values and a world view.
CONCLUSION
As this analysis has shown, health foods are more than simply a way of eating
and more than an alternative healing system. If we return to Clifford Geertz's definition
of religion as a "system of symbols" which produces "powerful, pervasive,
and long-lasting moods and motivations" by "formulating conceptions of
a general-order of existence" and making them appear "uniquely realistic,"
we see that the health food movement definitely has a religious dimension.
There
is, first, a system of symbols, in this case based on certain kinds and qualities
of food. While the foods are believed to have health-giving properties in themselves,
they also symbolize a world view which is concerned with the right way to live one's
life and the right way to construct a society.
This "right way" is based
on an approach to life which stresses harmony with nature and the holistic nature
of the body. Consumption of those substances designated as "health foods,"
as well as participation in other activities associated with the movement which also
symbolize its world view (such as exercising or growing an organic garden) can serve
to establish the "moods and motivations" of which Geertz speaks.
The committed
health food follower may come to experience a sense of spiritual as well as physical
well-being when he or she adheres to the health food way of life. Followers are thus
motivated to persist in this way of life, and they come to see the world view of
this movement as correct and "realistic."
In addition to its possession
of sacred symbols and its "convincing" world view, the health food movement
also has other elements which we usually associate with a religion. Concepts of mana
and taboo guide the choice of foods. There is a distinction between the pure and
impure and a concern for the maintenance of purity. There are "temples"
(health food stores and other such establishments) which are expected to maintain
purity within their confines. There are "rabbis," or experts in the "theology"
of the movement and its application to everyday life. There are sacred and instructional
writings which set out the principles of the movement and teach followers how to
utilize them.
In addition, like many religious movements, the health food movement
harkens back to a "golden age" which it seeks to recreate and assumes that
many of the ills of the contemporary world are caused by society's departure from
this ideal state.
Individuals entering the movement, like individuals entering any
religious movement, may undergo a process of conversion. This can be dramatic, resulting
from the cure of an illness or the reversal of a previous state of poor health, or
it can be gradual, a step-by-step changing of eating and other habits through exposure
to health food doctrine.
Individuals who have undergone conversion and mazeway resynthesis,
as well as those who have tested and confirmed various aspects of the movement's
prescriptions for better health and a better life, may give testimonials to the faith.
For those who have adopted, in full or in part, the health food world view, it provides,
as do all religions, explanations for existing conditions, answers to specific problems,
and a means of gaining control over one's existence. Followers of the movement are
also promised "salvation," not in the form of afterlife, but in terms of
enhanced physical well being, greater energy, longer life-span, freedom from illness,
and increased peace of mind.
However, although the focus is this-worldly, there is
a spiritual dimension to the health food movement. And although it does not center
its world view around belief in supernatural beings, it does posit a higher authority--the
wisdom of nature--as the source of ultimate legitimacy for its views.
Health food
people are often dismissed as "nuts" or "food faddists" by those
outside the movement. Such a designation fails to recognize the systematic nature
of the health food world view, the symbolic significance of health foods, and the
important functions which the movement performs for its followers.
Health foods offer
an alternative or supplement to conventional medical treatment, and a meaningful
and effective way for individuals to bring about changes in lives which are perceived
as unsatisfactory because of poor physical and emotional health. It can also provide
for its followers a framework of meaning which transcends individual problems.
In
opposing itself to the predominant American life-style, the health food movement
sets up a symbolic system which opposes harmony to disharmony, purity to pollution,
nature to culture, and ultimately, as in many religions, life to death.
Thus while
foods are the beginning point and the most important symbols of the health food movement,
food is not the ultimate focus but rather a means to an end: the organization of
a meaningful world view and the construction of a satisfying life.
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