Abstract: This book describes Caribbean attitudes, beliefs, and practices concerning food. The "foodways" discussed include: how food is acquired and stored; which foods are consumed; how foods are prepared; who prepares them; and who eats with whom, when, how and in what quantity. The social and cultural patterns of food practices in the Caribbean and their origins are the main subjects of this publication. Other topics include: The Caribbean food heritage or roots; past and current dietary practices; how food relates to health; and the nutritional and other characteristics of selected foods in the English-speaking Caribbean.
The Best Caribbean Foods to Combat Chronic Diseases is a factual, easy-to-understand summary of which real Caribbean foods can not only solve nutrition problems but reverse them!
The aim of this publication is to provide the interested reader with an authoritative and comprehensive up-to-date bibliography on all important facets of the world food problem, encompassing such questions as the availability of natural reseources, the present and future sources of energy, environmental quality, population growth, world malnutrition, the state of food production, food consumption patterns, future food needs, toxicological aspects of food, agricultural and industrial aspects of food production, and family planning. It is the first compilation of its kind in that it covers the subject from a multidisciplinary point of view, including publications that deal with teh description and alaysis of the world food problem as well as those that offer alternative strategies adn specific technological meaures for alleviating the problem.
The science of nutrition has advanced beyond expectation since Antoine La voisier as early as the 18th century showed that oxygen was necessary to change nutrients in foods to compounds which would become a part of the human body. He was also the first to measure metabolism and to show that oxidation within the body produces heat and energy. In the two hundred years that have elapsed, the essentiality of nitrogen-containing nutrients and of proteins for growth and maintenance of tissue has been established; the ne cessity for carbohydrates and certain types of fat for health has been docu mented; vitamins necessary to prevent deficiency diseases have been identified and isolated; and the requirement of many mineral elements for health has been demonstrated. Further investigations have defined the role of these nutrients in metabolic processes and quantitated their requirements at various stages of development. Additional studies have involved their use in the possible prevention of, and therapy for, disease conditions.
While the previous two volumes in this series were based upon methodol ogy, theory, and the relationship between ecology and population structure, this book can be viewed as an in-depth case study. The population genetics of a multitude of diverse groups geographically distributed throughout the world was examined in the first two volumes. In contrast, this volume focuses upon a single ethnic group, the Black Caribs (Garifuna) of Central America and St. Vincent Island, and explores the interrelationships among the ethnohistory, sociocultural characteristics, demography, morphology, and genetic structure of the group. This volume offers a broad and intensive treatment of the Black Caribs and their interactions with surrounding populations. My interest in the genetics of the Black Caribs was sparked by an accidental meeting in Amsterdam, Holland, in March 1975. A conversation with Nancie Gonzalez at the Applied Anthropology Meetings revealed the "truth-is-stranger than·fiction" history of the Black Carib peoples of the Caribbean. This was a popUlation with a small-sized founding group and a unique biological success story. Nancie Gonzalez was particularly interested in estimating the Carib Indian admixture in the contemporary Garifuna popUlation. Given my previous experi ence in estimating Spanish and African admixture in the Tlaxcaltecan population (whose gene pool consisted predominantly of Indian alleles), a group that appeared to be primarily African with some Indian admixture was of great interest. Aside from the ethnohistorical interest, I believe that such a population may add conSiderably to our understanding of the inheritance of complex morphological traits.
