MARIAL CENTER COLLOQUIUM
Professor George Armelagos
Department of Anthropology, Emory University
MARIAL Center Core Faculty
"What's For Dinner"
Wednesday, October 18th, 2000, 4:00 p.m
Although dietary guidelines are developed after observations
of health outcomes and widely promoted in various media, only
2% of Americans comply with dietary guidelines defined by the
RDAs and the recommended daily intake of less than 30% fat.
The fact that so many Americans do not do what is good for them
represents a paradox that clinicians, nutritionists, and social
scientists find difficult to explain. We suggest an evolutionary
perspective that can help us understand this paradox. We have
lived in an industrial food system for but .00005% of our existence
as hominids. Phylogenetic reconstruction of ancestral dietary
adaptations reveal that Homo sapiens have a primate legacy that
still influences our current eating habits. Modern humans retain
a physiologically mediated (innate) primate tendency to dislike
bitter substance (because in most ancestral habitats these were
toxic) and have a propensity for sweetness (because in most
ancestral habitats these were good source of energy). In addition,
4,000,000 years of evolution as successful gathering and hunting
hominids has produced a species of food generalist (omnivores)
whose digestive system has adapted to high-density food. Variety
is an essential part of the human diet.
Finally, past selections for extreme sociality
mean that today our cultural system easily filters or changes
our perceptions of food and influences our likes and dislikes.
Recent changes force us to ask what, if any, aspects of our
modern industrial diet remain adaptive. With the agricultural
revolution (about 10,000 years ago), there was a decrease in
dietary breadth (the foods available) and an increase in methods
of preparation. Although there is a potential for increase in
the variety of foods in the modern food systems, many foods
are variation on themes that provide only illusory variety.
While an industrial food system has an unprecedented potential
to supply us with dietary essentials, it also provides new ways
through which food can be used to define us as individuals and
members of groups, give us pleasure, reveal our status and gender,
and to determine our health. Given the complex functions of
food, it is not surprising that we are perplexed when asked,
"what's for dinner?"
George J. Armelagos is Professor of Anthropology
at Emory University and a core faculty member of the Emory Center
for Myth and Ritual in American Life (the MARIAL Center). His
research has focused on diet and disease in human adaptation.
He has coauthored Demographic Anthropology with Alan
Swedlund and Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating
with Peter Farb. He has coedited Paleopathology at the Origins
of Agriculture with Mark Cohen and Disease in Populations
in Transition: Anthropological and Epidemiological Perspective
with Alan Swedlund. He is interested in examining contemporary
food habits from an evolutionary perspective.
The MARIAL Center
Emory West, 4th Floor, Room 415E
Refreshments will be served
DIRECTIONS TO THE MARIAL CENTER
Convenient and quick transportation to Emory West is available
every 10 minutes from the Campus via shuttle (Route W, which can
be found on the corner of Asbury Circle and Pierce Drive, Along
Pierce Drive, or in Front of the Administration Building). It
is a 5 minute ride. Or you can drive and park close in at Emory
West, 1256 Briarcliff Rd. Tell the receptionist at the front window
that you are here for the MARIAL Center lecture.
