5. Food Flashcards
Food foragers/Hunter-gatherers? Example of people
Those who seek their food among available resources
Ju/hoannsi / !kung
Hadza
Food producers?
Those who grow their food, transform their environment with the goal of food production
- Horticulturalists
- Pastoralists
- Insensitive agriculturalists
- Industrialists
What is the link between foodways and culture?
A culture’s foodways are fundamental to the structure and functioning of their society.
Foodway strategies are flexible and nonexclusive
What type of change are foodways constantly subjected to?
External and internal pressure
- Environment changes
- New technology
- Trade
- Violent conquest -> colonuzation
What is the social networks which build human society based on?
Stem from a hunter-gather lifestyle
Bands?
Small groups of foragers that will live and travel together
Social density?
Frequency and intensity of interactions among group members -> interpersonal conflicts
Smaller groups minimize social density and create fewer opportunities s for conflicts
Egalitarian society?
Every member gets immediate rewards from foraging which limits status differences
What does it mean that bands are cooperative societies?
- Sharing is their key strategy for survival
- Homogeneoussocieties, share culture, knowledge and religion
- Lack of specialization in the tasks performed by the individuals
- Sexual division of labour
Horticulture? + examples
(Horti means gardens)
Practise of maintaining gardens that produce food. Live in one place
They may hunt and gather but the majority of their food comes from crop.
Cook Island - Rarotonga, origins of arori people
Carrying capacity?
The number of people that can be sustained with the existing resources of a given area
What is the origin of most horticultures?
- Foragers will remain in one area until the resources are used and they move on
- If the human population in one area is so large that available food will never be enough
- They are forced to seek new food strategies.
Why are horticultures often very religious?
- Their crops are vulnerable, if disease would hit it would kill their lively hood
- Pray for healthy crops
Swidden (or shifting) cultivation?
Sustainable method when there’s a lot of available land
Prepare by clearing and burning the lot
The ash works as fertilizer
Gardens are planted and harvest, then farmers move on and let the wildvegitaion regrow the lot. (Fallow)
Fallow?
Describes land that has been cultivated and left unseeded for a season. Allow the micronutrients in the soil to come back. If not done it can erode the soil.
Pastoralism?+ exmples
The way of life that revolves around heading animals.
Maasai,Nuer, Samburu - East Africa
Animal has bandry?
The use and breeding of animals for purposes that benefits humans
Evolutionary Gastronomy?
Lactase Persistence
Some theories how pastoral lifestyle developed?
- Second reliance for farming communities
- Foraging societies learned the habits of the animals they hunted, allowing them to keep team live for food and other material products.
What does the social organization look like for pastoralists?
- Nomadic since heading animals require moving to where the grazing is good -< Therefore, male headers may leave their families for longer periods
- Sexual division of labor, women milk the animals and males protects them
Transhumance?
A pattern of seasonal migration in which pastoralists move back and forth over long distances to productive pastures.
Why is pastoralism good for the environment?
- Encourages the biodiversity of native plants
- Attempt to utilize every part of the animal, minimize waste
Intensive agriculture?
Agri means fields
A farming technics that can support a large population using advanced tools and irrigation. Require more preparation and maintenance of the soil
A fully settled population that can work on the land throughout the year
That does it lead to that intensive agriculture has very short or no fallow period?
- Requires more maintenance of the soil
- Fertilizers
- Crop rotation
- Water manegement
Why does health suffer under an agricultural lifestyle?
People in foraging gets more nutrients -> stronger bones and teeth
Why did agriculture increase mortality rates?
- Low nutrition levels
- Physical stress of agricultural labor
- Exposure to new pathogens from soil and animals
Domestication?
Sharping the evolution of species for human use
The social organization of agricultural societies?
The shift from grain could feed a large number of people
- > Large population over wide areas
- > More complex social, economic and political systems
- > High status people living in the central area, low status people living on the periphery
- > Heavily populated central area -> city
Why does occupation specialization begin during intensive agriculture?
Owners of the land make a surplus and reap the benefits of the labor + get money from selling the crop surplus on the market.
Social hierarchy develops, agriculture?
- Nobles can harness the labor of workers to farm, build or fight
- Peasants supports the growth of the settlement by providing labor, often under oppressive conitions
Terraced?
A farming technique utilizing graduated steps on a hilly terrain
Small-scale vs. Large-scale agriculture?
Small: conserves future resources
Large: Goal to maximize production
Industrialism?
Methods of producing food and goods using highly mechanized machinery and digital information
Two major shifts in food-getting technology?
- Simply working the land
2. Took the work from farmers and gave to advanced technology.
Chemical inputs?
Synthetic additives, such as pesticides and fertilizers, that raise the yield of crops in industrial agriculture
Industrial Revolution 1800?
Farms grow in size and produce more food at a lower cost
Monocultured?
a Single crop is planted on a large number of acres. They are more susceptible to loss from a single type of soil-borne illness or insect prest than naturally resilient mixed ecosystems
Monocropping?
Growing a single crop year after year on the same plot of land, depletes the soil of nutrients.
Why are farmers often reffered to as unskilled worker?
- Low wages
- Rank structure with roots in slavery (sugar plantations)
- Migrant workers without legal status, live and work in terrible conditions
Describe the complex food distribution in industiral societies?
- Picked before ripe
- Transported to several distributions centers
- Sold in store
Community-supported agriculture?
A direct-marketing program in which consumers pay upfront for boxes of fresh produce from the farmers.
Mention some of the environmental concerns industrial food production creates?
- Pollution caused by animal waste or biochemical inputs
- Excess manure cannot be absorbed by the land and release hazardous gases and contaminate local ground water and surrounding waterways.
Globalization?
The integration of economic, social, political and geographic boundaries in complex chains of interconnected systems and processes
Three major transformations that have affected food access since the industrialization of the food system?
- Food production and distribution intertwined in s global interdependence.
- Develop nations, more choices and better nutrition
- Developing nations, the elite benefit while the majority of people who were dependent on local production suffer economically and nutritionally
Locavore diet?
Emphasize local food
The human’s ability to pick up nutrients?
Possibly form a variety of foods as long as the sources are whole foods ( food in their natural state not processed by chemicals or other means
The environment can also help the nutrient system, vitamin D from the sun
What has lower nutrition?
- Store-bought, prosseced food rather than home-prepared, whole foods
- Processed food rely on:
White flowers, processed soy, chemical preservatives, salt and sugar - Processed sugar instead, fruit or honey, lower glycemic index
Glycemic index?
Measure o how different foods affect one’s blood sugar. A high index results in a sharper rise in blood sugar.
