Anthropology Newsletter Columns: 2005
January 2005
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Janet Chrzan, Contributing Editor
Food Production, Food Equity, and Unionization of Food Workers
It is, perhaps, an ironic coincidence that the AAA's recent meeting-venue move to Atlanta was precipitated by the Multi-Employer Group, which included the San Francisco Hilton Hotel, lockout of workers from UNITE/HERE Local 2, which represents hotel workers including kitchen staff and cooks.
This provides us with an opportunity to ponder the plight of food workers in the US in general, with particular emphasis on pay equity and union rights. While many of us are aware of the low wages of food workers, we may not be aware of the abysmal working conditions, the lack of union representation, and the virtual impossibility of moving 'up' to better pay and wage security in food work.
It is particularly ironic that many of our lowest paid workers in the food service industry may be food-insecure themselves because of low wages, according to the latest Center on Hunger and Poverty bulletin Household Food Security in the United States, 2003 (www.centeronhunger.org/pdf/Dec2004Bulletin.pdf). For instance, the federal minimum wage of $5.15/hour would pay a gross annual wage of $10,506 for a 51 week work schedule, assuming a 40-hour work week. This is only $1200 over the poverty level for a single-person household, and nothing near the $15,670 poverty level for a family of three. Given that most food industry jobs pay near the minimum wage and often provide no benefits, it is simple to conclude that the vast majority of food-service jobs place recipients at or near the federal poverty level, even if more than one adult family member is working. We can also conclude that that many families with members working at minimum wage in food industries are food insecure, given that the center found that even more than 45% of households with greater than 130% of the poverty level were food insecure.
But hotel and restaurant workers aren't the only food-related laborers who are in need of wage support, fair conditions, and union representation. We must also consider the migrant workers who produce the high-value, high-labor-input crops (such as fruits, lettuce, and baby vegetables) so important to up-market restaurant meals. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee of the AFL-CIO (www.floc.com/) has had some success, but by and large most farm workers are under-represented, under-paid, and may work in physically and chemically dangerous environments. In addition, overseas farm laborers increasingly provide the out-of-season foods that we desire, such as Chilean asparagus and Mexican lettuce; these laborers are often completely unprotected due to insufficient wage and labor laws in their home countries.
Other industries, which are integral to the food system, are often unrepresented and underpaid. Truckers who transport the majority of our food are increasingly non-union, as are the stock clerks and checkers in grocery stores. While many local and small-chain groceries do offer good wages and benefits (and most of the larger chains employ union workers), many are non-union. Ironically, that bastion of PC feel-good foodie-ism, Whole Foods, is aggressively non-union, and has a nasty history of labor disagreements (see www.wholeworkersunite.org/).
And finally, we can't forget non-hotel restaurant workers. In particular, the food-prep people in most restaurants are rarely paid more than minimum wage, one reason why many are non-citizens, and often without green cards. I'll never forget Anthony Bourdain's moving description of how hard Mexican workers toil in NYC restaurants ' and why it is essential for all chefs to learn Spanish (Kitchen Confidential, 2001). Even those in the higher-end restaurants are rarely well-paid; our fascination with celebrity chefs seems to end with the chef and at the kitchen door. We rarely recognize that their artistry is dependant on the legions of poorly-paid prep workers, sous-chefs, waiters, and restaurant cleaners who keep each Michelin-starred celebrity hangout humming. In fact, most servers don't even receive minimum wage; they depend on tips for the bulk of their wage.
What can we do, collectively and singly? Indeed, this is an important question. The AAA's attempt to identify labor best-practices for group meetings is a start; groups have immense power when choosing venues for accommodation and dining. Personally, we can work to identify restaurants and groceries that support fair-wage structures (with or without union representation) and choose to patronize them exclusively, but we are still hard-pressed to support fair wages for general agricultural workers.
February 2005
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Janet Chrzan, Contributing Editor
[This column presents highlights from the SAFN business meeting, thanks to outgoing President Barrett Brenton, who provided the outline and conducted the meeting. The paragraphs below are adapted from his notes.]
Report on the 2004 AAA Meeting
Over the next year we will celebrate 30 years as an organization, and we encourage all members to contribute memories and ideas for the future of SAFN to Janet Chrzan, editor of this column, so that we might write how SAFN has progressed over the years
In the spring 2004 elections our section's members approved a ballot to change our section's name from the Council on Nutritional Anthropology (CNA) to the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN). This change in no way alters the holistic depth, breath and goals of the section that were fully realized in its founding three decades ago. The transformed name states our inclusive approach more clearly to the wider community of anthropologists, academics and advocates who share our common interests.
The Christine Wilson Award 2004 was awarded to Christine N Newkirk (UCONN) for her paper titled 'Social Patterning of Intercultural Diversity in Food Knowledge in Southern Brazil.' Her paper examines how food knowledge is distributed by class and how such knowledge correlates with accepted notions of healthful diets, behavior and prestige in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
We also have incoming Board Members: President, Miriam Chaiken and Vice President-Elect, Marquisa LaVelle.
Outreach Endeavors
A primary topic of discussion during our business meeting was the need for increased visibility of SAFN among AAA members, as well as among academics in general. We hope to achieve this through a full program of sessions for the AAA meetings (please submit sessions for 2005!), the distinguished Speakers Series, Christine Wilson Award, SAFN/AAA webpage, SAFN listserv (see webpage for how to sign up), and the peer-reviewed Nutritional Anthropology. Kristen Borre (outgoing VP and Editor) encourages all members to submit articles for the journal, as well as research reports, book reviews, and short essays on methods in research and teaching.
Other development projects include the SNACIII (Syllabi Project) which will be collated this year and made available on the SAFN website. Members discussed the need for a new Nutritional Anthropology Methods Handbook; anyone who wishes to contribute to that project please contact the SAFN board.
Finances and Membership
We are happy to report that membership is up 11% from last year, many of whom are students. While we are currently in possession of a healthy bank balance, the financial needs of the journal will cause a substantial decrease during 2005. In particular, the costs associated with UC Press publication of Nutritional Anthropology (NA) and maintaining pre-2004 issues in archival format online through AnthroSource will cause a rise in dues over the next several years. This is to be expected, however, given that dues for this section have not been raised since 1991.
SAFN faces several issues concerning the adoption of AnthroSource and changes in publication of our journal. In brief, AAA will pay for archiving past issues of Nutritional Anthropology (NA) before 2003. This will be available online to all members of the AAA and by subscription for institutions through AnthroSource. For our 2005 budget and beyond, SAFN will be responsible for our share of the operating and administration fees of archived material. By 2006 SAFN will switch over to full AnthroSource publication, but given our small membership and current revenue we do not have the finances to do so. Online access to NA will provide a great deal of exposure to the journal outside of our membership but will require both financial and scholarly support from our members. This is also an opportunity to become a journal that is widely read and accessed through the portal system, but in order to support the journal in that format, responsibilities must be accepted and the structure of the current journal will change. Ideally, non-board members will become more active in the maintenance and peer-review of the journal, hopefully as members of an editorial board. Furthermore, we must decide how to best accomplish these changes this spring in order to construct a viable financial strategy. Please contact the SAFN board members (email addresses are available on the website) to voice your opinions!
March 2005
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Janet Chrzan, Contributing Editor
Online Spin
Have you heard of the Center For Consumer Freedom (http://www.consumerfreedom.com/index.cfm)? If you go to the website, you will be told that 'The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.'
The center supports advertisements which equate the Center for Science in the Public Interest with terrorists, and describes food activist Marion Nestle as 'one of the country's most hysterical anti-food-industry fanatics.' They cite as proof of her dangerous character: 'Nestle has worked with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the uncontested leader among America's dietary scolds' and has also given talks to (gasp) 'socialist scholars'. But after all, non-profit groups have a right to exist, even if their ideas are somewhat extreme, right?
Except the center isn't really non-profit, it's a front group for a PR firm supported by industrial food companies. And the opinions expressed aren't those of scientists but of paid advertisers (Sargent, web exclusive for The American Prospect 1/3/2005; http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8984). If you read the CFCF site their targets are clear: CSPI, PETA, Greenpeace, trial lawyers, and anyone who supports any kind of non-corporate food system, from vegetarianism to food-labeling laws. The strategy is glaringly obvious; attack each person or organization by equating their actions with that of a known 'evil', such as terrorists or people who are 'trying to take away your freedom' in order to create a fear reaction. A perfect example of the loss-of personal-control fear-mongering is the title of the January 13, 2005 article: 'Activists Don't Want Dietary Guidelines, They Want Control'. And as we all know, if there is one thing that Americans fear more than anything else, it's having some unnamed 'other' control the self. It's the perfect message to incite fear and dislike of consumer-advocacy groups that seek to bring attention to how corporate food is produced and distributed.
Another disinformation strategy is to provide information which seems unbiased yet is carefully cherry-picked to promote belief in the system of thought the corporation embraces. Monsanto provides a web-based learning tool for school teachers, designed to promote science knowledge while carefully controlling how students perceive biotech (http://199.89.233.43/biotech/teachscience.nsf). The name of the site is 'Teaching Science.Org', and with the url tag including the letters 'nsf' it certainly seems that it might be an unbiased science-teaching site. It is true that Monsanto's name is on practically every page, but the nature of the relationship is unclear. An example of the less-adversarial strategy used by Monsanto is the multiple links to differing curricula and news sources. One news item (for 1/12/2005) states 'GM Foods Safer Than 'Natural' Counterparts' and tells us that a new book by 'Dr. Henry Miller, M. D., and Gregory Conko set out to refute many scare tactics regarding the safety of genetically-modified food. The authors, of the Hoover Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, respectively, argue that the scientific methods used to develop these products and the regulatory review to which they are subject to has made them safer than their 'natural' counterparts.' That neither of these writers are biochemists and that both of them work for politically-non-neutral 'think tanks' with clear histories of support of corporate power structures alerts me that they might be biased; it might not seem as transparent to a high-school student doing research on biotechnology. The rhetorical bias might be a clue as well, but once again, perhaps not to a less-cynical person.
Both of these sites were brought to my attention by my students, who accessed them for background information on biotech and food industry subjects. They represent only a few of the multiple 'advocacy' groups supported by specific political or business interests. Corporations certainly have the right to maintain such sites; however, I question the transparency of their connections. The CFCF reports to be a 501(c)(3) advocacy group for consumer freedom, yet is wholly supported by specific fast-food and industrial food conglomerates whose connections are obscured.
Fortunately, The Center for Media and Democracy provides Disinifopedia.org (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Disinfopedia), a site where the sponsorship of numerous 'institutes', 'think-tanks' 'advocacy groups' is revealed. While the focus of the organization is left-centrist, Disinfopedia provides clear funding backgrounds on organizations across the political spectrum. It's a valuable tool for food policy scholarsâ?| and their students.
April 2005
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Janet Chrzan, Contributing Editor
Food as Medicine or Medicine as Food?
Karol Chandler-Ezell (Washington U School of Medicine)
While many know that nutritional anthropologists investigate ritual foods, conserve food gathering practices and explore cultural meanings of food, nutritional anthropologists are also ideal investigators for a far more extensive set of questions about what people eat and why, because the line between medicine, nutrition, and food is blurred - as are the boundaries between the investigational territories of medical anthropology, ethnobiology, and food studies.
For instance, are nutraceuticals (nutritional supplements, vitamins, herbs, etc.) food or medicine? Does the form of consumption change the definition, cognitive category, and realm of investigation? While wild plants gathered for medicinal purposes are comfortably within the realm of ethnobotany, bottles of pre-packaged capsules containing the same plant extract stray into the realm of medical anthropology. For instance, vitamin C or folic acid 'pills' may be considered medicine while orange juice is a serving of fruit in a healthy diet. When does consuming citrus transition from more than 'healthy food' and become a remedy for preventing a cold or birth defects? When is comfort food a home remedy or treatment?
Tonics are common to many medical and cultural systems, and are among the most prevalent remedies and foods used with the intent of preventing a variety of illnesses. Despite this, there are very few academic studies of tonics; they are often dismissed as 'old-time' folk remedies or superstitions (Vance 1947; Berman and Flannery 2001). In medical literature, they are dismissed as placebos or 'snake oil' sold by charlatans (Stage 1979; Blake, Tate et al. 1999). Ironically, these same arguments have been revived to dismiss popular herbal remedies and nutraceuticals. Tonics are important, however, as they raise two basic questions: 1) are they placebos, or are they biologically effective? and 2) even if they are mere placebos, what motivates people to use them?
In my dissertation (Chandler-Ezell 2003), I found that 15.5% of my informants used tonics and 24.1% used preventive remedies (n=58). Herbal remedies were consumed to prevent possible future problems such as cancer, Alzheimer's, memory loss due to aging, stress, cardiovascular disease, and weakness. The form of these tonics ranged from capsules to power bars to 'food' products. (For example, soy occurred as a supplementary pill, an ingredient added to power-bars and diet products, and as soymilk and tofu; oat fiber was consumed both in fiber supplements and as a morning cereal).
Interestingly, in another study, cross-cultural comparison using the Human Relations Area Files reveals not only that there are consistencies in tonic use in many cultures, but also that perceived threats leading to tonic use are often cued to environmental stressors such as seasonality, climate, and life history patterns. We have constructed a cross-cultural classification system which allows the coding and comparison of different tonics and uses of tonics. Comparisons of the purposes and consumers for these tonics should reveal perceived risks and vulnerabilities within societies, as people take tonics for reasons, and these reasons reveal fears and perceived vulnerabilities. Our classification system could use tonics to tell us 'what people are afraid of' and how that compares to actual illness rates.
Nutritional anthropologists can contribute to knowledge about tonic use as a part of food consumption with studies comparing epidemiological disease prevalence to perceived risk and use of preventive/tonic remedies. We can investigate how well tonics, perceived-risk and actual-risk-to-health match. Nutritional Anthropology is the ideal theoretical medium for such investigation because it focuses on the blurry zones between medicine, nutrition, food, and traditional practices of consumption; it allows for an understanding of the 'thick' multiple meanings of such simple and yet infinitely complex actions as having a glass of orange juice.
Berman, A. and M. A. Flannery (2001). America's Botanico-Medical Movements: Vox Populi. New York, Pharmaceutical Products Press.
Blake, D., P. Tate, et al. (1999). "A patient requests an old-style tonic." Practitioner 243((1600)): 533-4, 539-40.
Chandler-Ezell, K. (2003). The Modern Herbal Synthesis: An ethnobotanical investigation of the emergence and function of herbalism in the revitalization of American healthcare. Department of Anthropology. Columbia, MO, University of Missouri. Ph.D.
Stage, S. (1979). Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine. New York, W.W. Norton & Company.
Vance, R. (1947). Ozark magic and folklore. New York, Dover Publications.
May 2005
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Janet Chrzan, Contributing Editor
Message from the President
Miriam Chaiken, Indiana U of Penn
The 2004 AAA meeting in Atlanta was an important juncture for our section, especially as we learned more about the consequences of joining AnthroSource. Although we secured more information, we were unable to reach any final consensus as we did not have a quorum of our Executive Board to ratify decisions. In late January we had a productive board meeting via teleconference, at which we discussed many issues, but most of our decisions ultimately hinged on whether to participate in AnthroSource, as it has sweeping fiscal implications for us. Like many small units, we have a relatively small membership base, and thus a relatively small revenue stream. We have made decisions about trying to solidify that revenue base, but we remain with concerns about the possibility that participation in AnthroSource might bankrupt our organization ' a AAA unit with a 30 year history of activity and success. We have thus come to the following consensus, and below is an outline of our plan for action over the next two years:
Opt out of AnthroSource for the near future. To fully participate in AnthroSource we project that we would have to more than triple our current dues, maintain or expand our current membership, and forgo other important activities that we sponsor (e.g. vibrant keynote speakers at the annual meetings). Given that membership in any AAA unit will provide members with access to the full range of AnthroSource resources, we are not confident that we will be able to expand membership levels as there is realistically minimal incentive to belong to more than one unit.
Modify format for Nutritional Anthropology. Our publication has historically been issued twice annually, and consisted of peer reviewed articles, research reports, book reviews, and section business. In recent years we have experienced problems that have interrupted our publication schedule. The work of producing Nutritional Anthropology has been borne by volunteer editors who simultaneously served as section Vice President. The work load has become overwhelming for an unpaid editor, particularly for those of us who have minimal institutional support. In response we have decided that the first step will consist of putting the print publication of NA on hiatus for the next two years, and instead producing a scaled-down, peer reviewed publication that will be available only in electronic format on the SAFN/AAA web site.
We will also need to make necessary by-laws changes and restructure Vice President/Editor position. We are, to our knowledge, the only AAA unit that has an editor who assumes the post by virtue of being elected to an Executive Board position. We would like to uncouple the roles of Editor and Vice President, increasing the duration of the term of the former, so that whoever fills that post has time to master the necessary knowledge. We will establish an editorial board, whose members elicit and review manuscripts and set the tone for the publication. We will add two or more Associate Editors with specific responsibilities that are intended to lighten the Editor's work load. We can revisit the option of participation in AnthroSource in the future once these modifications are in place.
We will also by necessity raise our annual membership dues. Based on information that we were given at the AAA meetings, we are the unit that currently charges the least for membership, and has gone the longest time without a fee increase (last raised in 1991). Despite the dues increase, we hope that our loyal members will remain, as we have plans for significantly expanding the visibility of our unit, and for seeking opportunities for collaboration with other units that have shared interests.
These strategies have all been identified after careful consideration by the Executive Board of SAFN. Our most important central value underlying all of these changes is our wish to maintain the vitality of our organization. We may in fact be one of the smaller sections of the AAA, but our membership has been very loyal and the participation of members very consistent over our 30 year history. We hope to build upon that capital and guide SAFN to a position of respect, visibility, and fiscal security.
We invite your opinions of our strategic plan, and hope to communicate with you in the near future.
October 2005
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Janet Chrzan, Contributing Editor
Memories of Christine Wilson
Kristin Borre, East Carolina: Christine was a very fair person who tried to get everyone to discuss different viewpoints. She was a skilled editor who wanted to support scholarship within nutrition as well promote anthropological theory and methods to nutritionists. Once she sent me a paper to review about the diet of Native Americans. I had just come out of the field and was writing my dissertation and felt very full of myself. The authors were well known nutritionists and in their paper they made sweeping statements about the value of their research to improve the quality of life of the poor, uneducated natives. The overall research design was classical dietary methodology and they intended to make recommendations based on nutrient deficiencies and expected the native people to change their diet accordingly. I shot back a review that went to great lengths to explain to the authors that their assumptions about the native community were naive and arrogant and that they needed to involve the community leaders in discussions about their views of nutrition and well-being. The authors shot back that they had involved the tribal leaders and had permission to do their study and they did not want to change their manuscript. Christine worked carefully to smooth the communication, get the authors to explain in detail how they worked with the community and got me to soften my tone and recognize that the value of the paper was in the data reported. She could have chosen to dismiss my diatribe against the arrogance of traditionally trained nutritionists and their "objective" research, or she could have rejected the manuscript outright base on my review. But she worked confidently and patiently with me, another reviewer and the authors to work the manuscript into a pretty good article. Her diplomacy and ability to bridge the two professional views of diet of indigenous people got the job done professionally and with respect to all.
Andrea Wiley, James Madison: I met Christine in 1986 at UCSF, when I took a nutritional anthropology course from her. She was a tremendous resource - Christine knew everyone in the field and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the literature. It was sad that she was clearly so very central to nutritional anthropology, but relatively unacknowledged in the medical anthropology program there, and she remained one of its hidden treasures. She was incredibly kind, supportive, encouraging and generous with students. Her modesty always struck me - maybe because she was so small and frail looking - yet she had incredible energy. Her death is a real loss to nutritional anthropology.
Miriam Chaiken, Indiana U of Penn: Christine always struck me as having an unbelievable well of energy and focus. Several years ago at the San Francisco AAA meetings, we had had a long day and I felt exhausted. Christine joined a number of us for dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant, which was memorable in many ways, not the least of which was Leslie Lieberman's bravely joining the belly dancers! At the end of the dinner when I felt ready to collapse into bed, Christine said she needed to get back to her room to finish the NY Times crossword puzzle, which she did religiously. I was so impressed with her energy and focus! As I helped her siblings sort out her papers in July we came across several reference books that were clearly used to support her puzzle habit (such as a reverse spelling dictionary), all neatly lined up in handy proximity to her desk. She approached her recreational puzzle with the same discipline that she did her professional work. Her sister-in-law Polly often tried to include Christine in social activities in the Annapolis area, but Chris often begged off as being "too busy", and now Polly and the rest of us can clearly see evidence of that in the voluminous correspondence that she carefully cataloged in her files. Anyone who has corresponded with Christine can surely recall her letters, as her personality and voice come through loud and clear. It is rare today to see someone who is a gifted letter writer, but Christine was surely that.
November 2005
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Janet Chrzan, Contributing Editor
SAFN in Washington DC
In the last year or two, SAFN has undergone enormous changes, which are certainly reflected in the diversity of sessions offered. Our name change reflects our commitment to multiple approaches to the study of food and nutrition, and is ably illustrated this year by the breadth of session topics. They reflect methods and theoretical paradigms spanning the four-field approach, from socio-cultural and discourse-centered food experiences to nutritional-clinical studies of child health from a biocultural perspective.
On the morning of Wednesday, November 30 participants in 'Culinary travel'agent of dietary and nutritional change?' will examine the effect of food tourism and fieldwork on nutritional choice. Turning to the feeding practices of young children, in an invited session on Thursday morning, December 1, 'Applied Behavioral Ecology of Young Child Feeding,' participants will consider how feeding practices can be clinically sub-optimal for children and their mothers, despite clinical recommendations. Later that afternoon, in 'But What about Africa?' members can listen to a discussion of the daunting problems confronting millions of Africans largely invisible in the media.
On the afternoon of Saturday, December 3, food and eating will again be the focus of two sessions, a poster session, 'Food and Community in New Orleans' and 'Adventures in Eating: Anthropological Experiences of Dining from around the World,' where anthropologists will personally discuss how food and feasting can both provide social cohesion and stress.
We are also very happy to be co-sponsors for two exciting invited sessions. 'Intergenerational Implications of Child Health and Illness: The Embodiment of Family Ties,' cosponsored with the Society for Medical Anthropology on Thursday morning, looks at how child health and illness can be seen as the embodiment of effective or ineffective parental ties or caretaking. 'The Biocultural Evolution of Cuisine' offered Friday afternoon with the Biological Anthropology Section will promote a broad dialogue among cultural and biological anthropologists to develop an understanding of food and evolution that might inform policy.
Other 'must-do!' activities include the combined SAFN General Business Meeting, Wilson Award Presentation, SAFN Distinguished Lecture by Solomon H Katz, and belated SAFN 30th Birthday Party Reception on Friday, December 2, 6:15-9 pm.
SAFN Distinguished Lecture by Solomon H Katz
It is our honor to announce that the SAFN 2005 Distinguished Lecture will be delivered by Solomon H Katz (U Pennsylvania). The fact that he needs very little in the way of an introduction to most of us is a testament to his decades of research on food and nutrition issues and his involvement with this organization. He is best known for his research on the relationships between biology, culture and cuisine, with a focus on the ways in which cuisine is adaptive and an outcome of biocultural evolution. His monumental work as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (2003) was recently highlighted in an interview with Janet Chrzan in the May 2004 AN. Katz will be speaking to us about nutriculture and the future of an anthropology of food and nutrition. A reception to honor Katz and to wish Happy 30th Birthday to the section will follow the lecture. Come for the business meeting and stay to help blow out the birthday candles!
Topics for Discussion
The recent changes in the functions and activities of SAFN provide us with an opportunity to reflect upon our role within AAA as a vital and forward-planning subsection, as well as a time to assess and design future goals in nutritional anthropology in general. 2005 has been a year of unanticipated tragedy world-wide, with hurricanes and tsunamis as well as the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, illustrating the need for critical community food security planning, food-related disaster relief, and regional food security promotion in population areas affected by war and occupation. A pertinent topic for discussion in this year's meeting is the role we play in analyzing the impacts of Hurricane Katrina and the South Asian tsunami. As many of us work in food policy organizations or conduct research in this area, what insights do we have to offer for emergency preparedness, estimates of the impact in terms of hunger, and what agencies are culturally and cost effective in mitigating the disaster? Perhaps we could discuss prospects for a session or series next year on disasters and warfare'perhaps teaming up with some of the other related units who have folks with expertise in these areas. It might be interesting to specifically focus on a comparison of food security responses and impacts of the south Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.
December 2005
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Janet Chrzan, Contributing Editor
Barrett P. Brenton:
Nutritional Anthropologist of the Month for December 2005
Barrett P. Brenton is associate professor of anthropology at St John's University.
Dr. Brenton was broadly trained as a Biocultural Anthropologist: B.A. University of Nebraska-Lincoln; M.A. /Ph.D. University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His primary research areas encompass the anthropology of food and health. This has led him to cross-cultural settings in prehistoric, historic and contemporary contexts. He has conducted applied fieldwork in Peru, Ecuador, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Great Britain, Native American Nations across the U.S., and in impoverished rural and urban communities in New York State. A specific focus of his research has been on recording and being critical of environmental and political/economic change affecting epidemiological transitions in human populations. One of his primary career goals as a nutritional anthropologist and food policy advocate has been to develop research programs that seek to improve the health and nutrition of marginalized populations (rural, urban, and indigenous).
A few of his current research projects include:
• The paradox of childhood obesity, hunger and poverty in the U.S.;
• HIV/AIDS, food security, and resistance to genetically modified food aid in Zambia;
• The science and politics of international food fortification policies;
• Diabetes, obesity and the loss of traditional Native American foods;
• The impact of Indian casinos on Native American diet and health;
• Developing sustainable food production and improved nutrition programs for indigenous communities in the Amazonian region of Ecuador;
• The anthropology of organizational cultures in response to the terrorist acts of 9/11; and
• The forensic anthropology of apartheid-era skeletal trauma and malnutrition in South Africa.
Some of his most recent work focuses on childhood obesity, hunger and poverty in the US and abroad. Dr. Brenton investigates the dynamic relationship between dietary intake and body composition of low-income school-aged children who attend the St. John the Baptist School in the Bedford Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. In a similar vein, he recently conducted a pilot study on childhood growth, health and undernutrition among three indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. He intends the work in Ecuador to lead to a future in-depth and intensive service-learning research site for his University students on issues of health, nutrition, poverty and social justice; thus demonstrating the continuing relevancy of biocultural research in developed and developing regions. Dr. Brenton has investigated Native American health patterns for much of his career; currently, he is assessing the impact of casinos on dietary and health changes in Indian communities in upstate New York. An important dimension to this issue is the socio-economic and environmental impact that casinos have on local non'Indian communities. To this end he has been traveling to Catskills region to interview and discuss the positions of both pro- and anti-gaming coalitions and recently presented a portion of this work in papers titled: 'The Last of the Mohicans Return to the Land of the Iroquois': The Political-Economy of Indian Gaming and Cultural Identity in the Catskills' and 'The Future of Indian Gaming and Casinos in New York State', thus demonstrating that nutritional anthropologists have much to contribute ' in multiple arenas ' to public health planning.
In research more classically focused in bioanthropology, Dr. Brenton continues collaborative work on gross skeletal pathology and histological analyses of bone microstructure. Forensic components of the research have focused on South African Apartheid-era violence and related trauma, and the impact of malnutrition on histological aging techniques. This research with Robert Paine (Texas Tech U) resulted in a scientific abstract: 'Histological analysis of ribs from a 20th century Black South African population: Differentiating a microstructural pattern for pellagra and general malnutrition' in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology; and 'Dietary health does affect histological age assessment: An evaluation of the Stout and Paine (1992) age estimation equation using secondary osteons from the rib' in the Journal of Forensic Sciences (forthcoming).
Dr. Brenton's most recent publications include: associate editor for the 3-volume Encyclopedia of Food & Culture (2003/2004), co-editor of Global Perspectives on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2002), and has several articles on anti-hunger programs and international food aid in the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink (2004). In addition, he is co-editor of the international journal Ecology of Food and Nutrition (6 issues/year), and is Past-President of the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition.
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