Frederick J. Simoons's research remains original and invaluable, the only attempt of its kind to reconstruct the origin and spread of food avoidances while challenging current Western explanations. In this expanded and updated edition, Simoons integrates new research as he examines the use and avoidance of flesh foods—including beef, pork, chicken, and eggs, camel, dog, horse, and fish—from antiquity to the present day.    Simoons suggests that Westerners are too ready, even in the absence of supporting evidence, to cite contemporary thinking about disease and environmental factors to explain why certain cultures avoid particular kinds of meat. He demonstrates how historical and archaeological evidence fails to support such explanations. He examines the origin of pork rejection in the Near East, explores the concept of the sacred cow in India and the ensuing ban on beef, and reveals how some African women abstain from chicken and eggs, fearing infertility.      While no single explanation exists for food taboos, Simoons finds that the powerful, recurrent theme of maintaining ritual purity, good health, and well-being underlies diet habits. He emphasizes that only a full range of factors can explain eating patterns, and he stresses the interplay of religious, moral, hygienic, ecological, and economic factors in the context of human culture. Maps, drawings, and photos highlighting food avoidance patterns in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific provide additional information throughout the book.

    Rather it concerns mostly the plants and animals that stand between us and starvation. The subject can be called ethnobiology, the study of plants and animals in relation to humans. This book describes patterns of food use and distribution that have developed from prehistoric times to the present.What are the major plants and animals on which humans subsist? Where do these plants and animals come from? This book addresses these and other questions related to food. It does so in a highly readable format, assuming no prior botanical or zoological knowledge. It organizes the discussion along chapter topics such as "Grasses: The staff of live." Learn that yams have served as a source of steroid hormones, that sugar is a grass from the South Pacific and observe how cauliflower, kale and brussels sprouts all derive from a single plant species. On the down side, this book's treatment of genetic engineering is outdated and the faith given to improvements in crop production not well reconciled with a concluding chapter on food problems, e.g. pesticide use. But these weaknesses are outweighed to the reader seeking a concise, interesting overview of the foods on which we subsist.