00_Prelims.qxd 1/23/09 3:12 PM Page i RESEARCHING FOOD HABITS 00_Prelims.qxd 1/23/09 3:12 PM Page ii THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD AND NUTRITION General Editor: Helen Macbeth Volume 1 Food and the Status Quest. An Interdisciplinary Perspective Edited by Polly Wiessnerand Wulf Schiefenhövel Volume 2 Food Preferences and Taste: Continuity and Change Edited by Helen Macbeth Volume 3 Food for Health, Food for Wealth: The Performance of Ethnic and Gender Identities by Iranian Settlers in Britain Lynn Harbottle Volume 4 Drinking: Anthropological Approaches Edited by Igor de Garineand Valerie de Garine Volume 5 Researching Food Habits: Methods and Problems Edited by Helen Macbethand Jeremy MacClancy 00_Prelims.qxd 1/23/09 3:12 PM Page iii RESEARCHING FOOD HABITS Methods and Problems Edited by Helen Macbeth and Jeremy MacClancy First published in 2004 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2004 Helen Macbeth and Jeremy MacClancy All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Researching food habits : methods and problems / edited by Helen Macbeth and Jeremy MacClancy. p. cm. -- (The anthropology of food and nutrition ; v. 5) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-57181-544-6 (hardback : alk.paper) -- ISBN 978-1-57181-545-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Food habits. 2. Food preferences. I. Macbeth, Helen M. II. MacClancy, Jeremy. III. Series GT2850.R47 2003 394.1’2--dc22 2003063589 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States on acid-free paper ISBN 978-1-57181-544-6 hardback ISBN 978-1-57181-545-3 paperback 00_Prelims.qxd 1/23/09 3:12 PM Page v CONTENTS List of Figures vii List of Tables viii Preface ix List of Contributors xii Introduction: How to do Anthropologies of Food 1 Jeremy MacClancy andHelen Macbeth 1. Anthropology of Food and Pluridisciplinarity 15 Igor de Garine 2. Definitions, Concepts and Methods in the Ethnobotany of FoodPlants 29 Attila T. Szabó 3. Qualitative Research in the Anthropology of Food: A Comprehensive Qualitative/Quantitative Approach 41 Annie Hubert 4. ‘Tell me what you eat and you will tell me who you are’: Methodological Notes on the Interaction between Researcher and Informants in the Anthropology of Food 55 F. Xavier Medina 5. Food, Identity, Identification 63 Jeremy MacClancy 6. Doing it Wrong: Why Bother to do Imperfect Research? 75 Gerald Mars andValerie Mars 00_Prelims.qxd 1/23/09 3:12 PM Page vi vi Contents 7. Methods for Assessing Taste Abilities and Hedonic Responses in Human and Nonhuman Primates 87 Bruno Simmen, Patrick Pasquet and Claude Marcel Hladik 8. Researching Food Preferences: Methods and Problems for Anthropologists 101 Helen Macbeth andFiona Mowatt 9. Dietary Intake Methods in the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition 119 Stanley J. Ulijaszek 10. Studying Food Intake Frequency: A Macrosurvey Technique for Anthropologists 135 Jeya Henry andHelen Macbeth 11. The Concept of Energy Balance and the Quantification of Time Allocation and Energy Expenditure 149 Patrick Pasquet 12. Methods for Obtaining Quantitative Data on Food Habits in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 161 Isabel González Turmo andJosé Mataix Verdú 13. Reconstructing Diets for Compensation for Nuclear Testing in Rongelap, Marshall Islands 169 Nancy J. Pollock 14. Food, Culture, Political and Economic Identity: Revitalising the Food-systems Perspective in the Study of Food-based Identity 181 Ellen Messer Epilogue: Some Final Hints 193 Helen Macbeth andJeremy MacClancy Glossary 197 Index 205 00_Prelims.qxd 1/23/09 3:12 PM Page vii LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Igor de Garine interviewing respondents in the field 19 5.1 Food as part of local identity 70 7.1 Blind tests for determining taste recognition thresholds 91 7.2 Example of a vertical 9-point labelled scale 93 7.3 The oral labelled magnitude scale 94 7.4 Visual analogue scale for hedonic rating 94 7.5 Labelled Affective Magnitude (LAM) scale 95 8.1 Example of a 9-point hedonic scale 106 8.2 Example of ‘strip’ with 11-point hedonic scale used in five-nation trials 109 8.3 Example of ‘strip’ with 11-point scale for concept of health value 111 8.4 Example of ‘strip’ with 11-point scale for concept of cost 112 8.5 Example of results from five-nation trials, displaying differences in hedonic scale scores by boxplot graphs: national diversity regarding preference for olive oil 113 9.1 Nomogram to calculate the number of days of diet records required to estimate nutrient intake of an individual, at a given level of precision 126 9.2 Visual definition of accuracy (validity) and precision (repeatability) 128 10.1a Example of 7-day Food Intake Frequency Record form, page 1 142 10.1b Example of 7-day Food Intake Frequency Record form, page 2 143 13.1 Map of Pacific Ocean showing Marshall Islands 170 00_Prelims.qxd 1/23/09 3:12 PM Page viii LIST OF TABLES 2.1 Conceptual differences between scientific and folk taxonomies: the case of Brassica 33 2.2 Preference ranking: example of an ethnobotanical matrix comparing preferences based on a number of criteria (taxon, characteristics, etc.) arranged by every respondent according to his or her order of preference 37 7.1 A selection of appropriate taste test solutions (twofold steps) 90 9.1 Levels of estimation in dietary and nutritional studies 120 9.2 Dietary intake methods 122 9.3 Biochemical markers or indices of nutrient intake 129 9.4 Recommendations for the design and analysis of diet studies 131 11.1 Ranking of methods for assessment of energy expenditure in field settings 157 00_Prelims.qxd 1/23/09 3:12 PM Page ix PREFACE T his book is about research techniques. It is a ‘how-to-do-it’ book for the new researcher or student who intends to undertake research in the ‘anthropology of food’. The phrase, the anthropology of food, has become an accepted abbre- viation for the study of anthropological perspectives on food, diet and nutri- tion. It has immediately to be said, however, that there are many aspects of anthropology and many ways to be interested in the topic of human food. Researchers who wish to gain a holistic understanding of almost any topic regarding human food, frequently feel virtually obliged to use a variety of research methods. They feel this sense of obligation for two main reasons: (1) because the anthropology of food encompasses so many perspectives, and (2) because these perspectives often interrelate in a significant manner. Within this book, the relevance and history of a variety of academic approaches to the anthropology of food are discussed and both their diversity and their modes of interaction are emphasised. Up until the publication of this book, these different approaches, and therefore any information on appropriate research methods, were only to be found under different, separate disciplinary classifi- cations in any library. For all these reasons, members of the International Commission on the Anthropology of Food (ICAF) thought it worthwhile to edit a book which brought together into one volume a cross-disciplinary selec- tion of relevant research methods. An immediate question at this initial stage has to be: ‘Who does what? Which kind of food anthropologist tends to follow, conventionally, which kind of approach and how, at the simplest level, do these approaches overlap?’ Nutritionists, human biologists and biological anthropologists study food items and their chemical constituents in order to understand the biochemical effects of these foods on human physiology, health, behaviour, survival and fertility. Yet, they also need to know whether any food items under consideration are consumed by the people they are studying and in what quantities. A broad range of human attitudes to those food items has an overwhelming effect on whether the items will be consumed, in what form, to what extent and whether they are even available and affordable. These attitudes in turn vary with social, cultural and economic patterns and situations, which are studied by social scientists, especially by social anthropologists, social psychologists and market