Growing up as the son of an internal medicine physician, I would always hear of the importance of medicine. How not taking your prescribed medicine or taking too much of your prescribed medicine was bad for you. I was taught the vital importance of medicine, but also to make sure to understand the reason I was taking the medication. I was also taught, most importantly, that it would be better to not have to take any medicine if I could avoid doing so. My dad was always talking about preventative medicine, and how he wished people would understand how important the everyday maintenance of your body was, and how it would mean less visits to the doctor where you’d be prescribed medicine to cure you. It was like western medicine was dedicated to curing people rather than keeping people healthy. And while curing people is a necessary part of healthcare, the continuous upkeep and maintenance of ones health should also be a priority. This daily upkeep is where I believe what you eat makes the most impact. It is also the intersection of three different types of anthropology: Food Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, and Nutritional Anthropology.
I recently read an article on Food Anthropology from Ashley Thuthao Keng Dam of Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche where she does exactly this. (I’ll pin the article at the bottom of the page.) She explores how different food and dishes are viewed as both a preventative medicine as well has a curative one in Khmer culture in Cambodia. Another example of this is the use of certain teas, like Lu’an Tea, in Chinese culture as a preventative and curative medicine. This is where I think the main divide is between “eastern” and “western” medicine. Eastern medicine tends to focus more on preventing illnesses where as western medicine focuses more on curing illnesses. And while each have their pros and cons, I think it would be best if we could combine the best of both to make the healthcare system better and therefore make people in general healthier.
Viewing food as a preventative medicine as well as a source of nutrition would solve a lot of problems as well as help people to avoid many different kinds of illnesses. The whole idea is that, if you eat foods that are highly nutritious and good for you, then you won’t get sick as often and therefore won’t need to cure that sickness with medicine that tends to have more side effects. There’s also the fact that some foods have naturally occurring chemicals that are good for very specific things in your body. Like antioxidants, which help to bind up free radicals in your body which are said to be responsible for a whole host of illnesses. Contracting these illnesses might mean having to go on multiple medications to cure and cope with the symptoms of the illness (or other medications), but could have been avoided by just eating a healthy diet.
Now, I’m not going to be the person who talks about what food is healthy versus what isn’t or what diet is the “healthiest” and will prevent every disease. And that’s because I don’t think there is one right answer. I think this is where there can be a lot of work done by medical, food and nutritional anthropologists to figure out how to incorporate different cultural ideals, remedies and medical practices to make the healthcare system at large better. This is why I get a little discouraged when people assume anthropology is “digging for bones and ceramic pots”. Or that I study ancient civilizations or “native” people in antiquity. Anthropology has a role in the current day as well and this is a perfect example of that. To provide more examples of how food can be used as medicine, I’ll be starting a new blog series called Medicinal Foods to dive deeper into this topic.
The Cultural Chef 
Western medicine has become an exercise in disease management andlittle emphasis on preventation. Health begins at home in the foods we eat(as well as the foods we dont eat) and the activities we participate in.
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