Food, Genes, and Culture Eating Right for Your Origins
Vegan, low fat, low carb, slow carb: Every diet seems to promise a one-size-fits-all solution to health. But they ignore the diversity of human genes and how they interact with what we eat.In Food, Genes, and Culture, renowned ethnobotanist Gary Nabh
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food, genes, and
CULTURE eating right for your origins
Gary Paul Nabhan
Washington | Covelo | London
Copyright © 2004 and 2013 Gary Paul Nabhan All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 2000 M Street, NW, Suite 650, Washington, DC 20036. Island Press is a trademark of Island Press/The Center for Resource Economics. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nabhan, Gary Paul. Food, genes, and culture : eating right for your origins / Gary Paul Nabhan. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61091-492-5 (pbk.) -- ISBN 1-61091-492-9 (paper) 1. Nutrition-Genetic aspects. 2. Food habits--History. 3. Human evolution. 4. Physical anthropology. I. Title. QP144.G45N33 2013 612.3--dc23 2013023650 British Cataloguing-in-Publication data available. Printed on recycled, acid-free paper Design by Kathleen Szawiola Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
“Now killin’ folks and cookin’ ain’t so very far apart.” herbert h. knibbs from his poem/song “Boomer Johnson”
66666 Dedicated to the memory of Ted Nabhan, Sally Giff Pablo, and Gabriel Williams
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contents
one two
Foreword
ix
Introduction
1
Discerning the Histories Encoded in Our Bodies
15
Searching for the Ancestral Diet
36
Did Mitochondrial Eve and Java Man Feast on the Same Foods?
three four five
Finding a Bean for Your Genes and a Buffer Against Malaria
63
The Shaping and Shipping Away of Mediterranean Cuisines
92
Discovering Why Some Don’t Like It Hot
112
Is It a Matter of Taste?
six
Dealing with Migration Headaches
140
Should We Change Places, Diets, or Genes?
seven
Rooting Out the Causes of Disease
163
Why Diabetes Is So Common Among Desert Dwellers
eight
Reconnecting the Health of the People with the Health of the Land
186
How Hawaiians Are Curing Themselves Sources
211
Index
225
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foreword
i f t h e r e i s a m o r a l to this story, it is that we ignore the interactions among our genes, our ancestral and contemporary diets, and our environments (including their myriad microbes) at our own peril. But if there is hope in this same story, it is that once we open our eyes, mouths, and taste buds to these fascinating interactions, our world will be made richer and many problems can be averted. What kinds of problems? For starters, the human suffering triggered by the onset of diabetes, heart disease, food allergies, and many forms of diet-driven inf lammation. Over the long haul, we also need to check the decline of biodiversity which will impoverish us all, but particularly that of the place-based microbes in our food systems, from the bacteria in our garden’s soils to those in our guts. These diseases and degradations affect the quality of life of billions of people, yet they are often mislabeled if not misdiagnosed and attributed to the wrong causes. Take adult-onset or non-insulin dependent diabe
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