Customer Reviews

Edible Medicines: An Ethnopharmacology of Food

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College-level collections, doctors, nutritionists and even the general public will find EDIBLE MEDICINES: AN ETHNOPHARMACOLOGY OF FOOD an important guide linking food history, dietary needs and culture. Plenty has been written covering the nutritional values of food, but relatively little on the pharmacological potentials of diet: EDIBLE MEDICINES focuses on the medicinal properties of foods in different cultures and blends history with underlying medical concerns and reflections on human evolution. A fascinating survey.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

First of all, let me say Bravo to the author. She has excellent writing skills and has somehow managed to pump insane amounts of information into a relatively short book. It's not a fast read. This is a lot of knowledge, but I feel enlightened already. It's not simply a book about food, culture, and health. It's a guided tour through the history of medicine and it will give a historical perspective on the relationship between food and health. But make no mistake, this is not a book on the perfect diet. This book is much deeper than that. I came to the conclusion on my own before I read this book, something was vastly wrong with the food system in America. As a medical student, I don't think we can fix healthcare without first changing the system of food production and distribution. People need to feel connected to the food they eat because food is not just sustenance, not just a hedonistic value, but a good diet is medicine unto itself. In the United States we spend less on food than other countries, but our bodies seem to fall apart because they are made of poor materials. I hope more people learn to treat food as an investment in their health, not as something to rid them of hunger. In the end, the less you invest in your food, the more you will be paying your hospital or doctor. And why do you think they aren't stopping you? Listen to Hippocrates a let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.