> Counterculture food groups have many divergent interests, but many
> cluster around the following overlapping issue areas:
>
> 1. environmental and sustainability issues
> 2. health and nutrition issues
> 3. legal/political issues
> 4. ethical/moral issues
> 5. science/technology issues
> 6. globalization issues
> What obvious issue areas have I left out?

Religious ones. The whole Western "alternative" lifestyle-politics
movement, and its nutritional wing that started as "food reform",
came out of the importation of Hindu ideas into Europe in the late
19th century, in Germany and Austria in particular. James Webb's
"The Occult Establishment" will give you an idea of the cultural
matrix, though it says relatively little about food per se. This
stuff is still very much alive in certain subcultures, the Rudolf
Steiner cult in particular ("biodynamic agriculture") and, over here,
the Findhorn crowd (invoking Indian tutelary deities to boost the
growth of your vegetables).

The issues you list developed historically as secular rationales for
practices that started out motivated by pure blind religious dogma.

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in article , bogus address at
wrote on 6/11/03 11:01 AM:

>
>
>> Counterculture food groups have many divergent interests, but many
>> cluster around the following overlapping issue areas:
>>
>> 1. environmental and sustainability issues
>> 2. health and nutrition issues
>> 3. legal/political issues
>> 4. ethical/moral issues
>> 5. science/technology issues
>> 6. globalization issues
>> What obvious issue areas have I left out?
>
> Religious ones. The whole Western "alternative" lifestyle-politics
> movement, and its nutritional wing that started as "food reform",
> came out of the importation of Hindu ideas into Europe in the late
> 19th century, in Germany and Austria in particular. James Webb's
> "The Occult Establishment" will give you an idea of the cultural
> matrix, though it says relatively little about food per se. This
> stuff is still very much alive in certain subcultures, the Rudolf
> Steiner cult in particular ("biodynamic agriculture") and, over here,
> the Findhorn crowd (invoking Indian tutelary deities to boost the
> growth of your vegetables).
>
> The issues you list developed historically as secular rationales for
> practices that started out motivated by pure blind religious dogma.
>
> ========> Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce <========
> Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
> <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html> food intolerance data & recipes,
> Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.
>
Sure, how about those Christians eating pork? I know Jews who like Bacon so
I bet there are Moslems who do to and maybe some of either Abrahamic sect
who actively promote it. There might even be Hindus who like a good rare
fillet steak.

I'd also like to add to the economic side. What about the spice trades? What
about Marco Polo? What about South America? Economics may judge what the
poor eat but the chance for merchants to make cash by introducing foreign
ingredients to a domestic market would have influenced dramatic shifts in
some cultures. Think about the introduction of the tomato to italian
cuisine. I mean, just how did one ingredient alter a cuisine and how
quickly?

J

>>> Counterculture food groups have many divergent interests, but many
>>> cluster around the following overlapping issue areas: [...]
>>> What obvious issue areas have I left out?
>> Religious ones. The whole Western "alternative" lifestyle-politics
>> movement, and its nutritional wing that started as "food reform",
>> came out of the importation of Hindu ideas into Europe in the late
>> 19th century, in Germany and Austria in particular.
> Sure, how about those Christians eating pork? I know Jews who like
> Bacon so I bet there are Moslems who do to and maybe some of either
> Abrahamic sect who actively promote it. There might even be Hindus
> who like a good rare fillet steak.

Andy was asking about a specific cultural phenomenon that took off
in the twentieth century, not food taboo violations in general. My
mum used to make bacon sandwiches for the kids next door since they
came from a Seventh Day Adventist family and would never otherwise
have tried them, but a counterculture figure she was not.

The things this newsgroup makes you dream about. I came up with a
recipe in my sleep: take one smallish Bible, lard it with rashers
of bacon, wrap in puff pastry and bake in a hot oven. Pity I was
too late to get that into the Futurist Cookbook.


> I'd also like to add to the economic side. What about the spice
> trades? What about Marco Polo? What about South America? Economics
> may judge what the poor eat but the chance for merchants to make
> cash by introducing foreign ingredients to a domestic market would
> have influenced dramatic shifts in some cultures.

For this particular shift, the soya business is the most relevant one
(though they didn't get into the act until after WW2 and started in
the US, whereas countercultural food started decades earlier in Europe).

========> Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce <========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html> food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.

In article >,
bogus address > wrote: