NICE OR NASTY Food Choice, Food Law and Health in South East Asia doc

NICE OR NASTYFood Choice, Food Law and Health in South East Asia i... Some Abbreviations Used ADI Acceptable daily intake AIA Advance informed agreement ASEAN Association of South East A

NICE OR NASTY

Food Choice, Food Law and Health in South East Asia

i

by John Candlish and Chee-Hong Tan

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the nameless millions who toil over woks in

the streets of South East Asia,providing nutritious meals for the poor

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If you steal from many it’s research.

– Wilson Minzer (1873–1933)

Food comes first, then morals.

– Berthold Brecht (1898–1947)

The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes

in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than keep a cow So it is, but the milk is

more likely to be watered.

– Samuel Butler (1835–1902)

No one owns life, but anyone who can pick up

a frying pan owns death.

– William Burroughs

(1914–1997)

Some Abbreviations Used

ADI Acceptable daily intake

AIA Advance informed agreement

ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations

BINAS Biosafety Information Network and Advisory ServiceCBD Convention on Biological Diversity

CAD Coronary artery disease

CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered SpeciesDDT Dichlorophenyltrichloroethane

EED Environmental Endocrine Disrupter

EFAEssential fatty acid

EU European Union

FAO Food and Agricultural Organisation

FDAFood and Drug Administration

GMC Genetically modified crop

GMF Genetically modified food

GMO Genetically modified organism

GRAS Generally regarded as safe

HRT Hormone replacement therapy

JECFAJoint Expert Committee on Food Additives

LMO Living modified organism

MRL Minimum residue limit

NGO Non-government organisation

NOAEL No observed adverse effect level

OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and DevelopmentPCB Polychlorinated biphenyls

PIC Prior informed consent

UNDO United Nations Development Organisation

UNEP United Nations Environmental Programme

WHO World Health Organisation

“Unusual” foods and the law – Insect eating –

Cats and dogs – Rodents – Scorpions – Snakes –

The Durian – Milk – Coconuts – Alcohol –

Cannibalism – Some comparisons

The Chinese cuisine – Hot and cold theories –

Foods as medicines – Language symbolism –

The case of raw fish – Aphrodisiac foods – The

soya bean – Bird’s nest - White rice – Shark’s

fin – A lcohol – Steamboat – Food for the dead –

The pace of change

Kampung food – Spices and condiments – Hot and

cold theories – Food and pregnancy – Jamu – Ulam

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5 Food Advertising

Types of consumer – Slimming advertisements –

Specific slimming products – Legal aspects – Coda

Names and claims – Interaction of health foods

with medical cultures – The antioxidant

imbroglio – Antidiabetic foods –

Antihypertensives – Sports foods – The choice of

fats – Some case studies – Summing up

Invisible hazards – Food safety legislation in South

East Asia – Adulterants – Additives – Pesticides and

other contaminating residues – Mycotoxins – Heavy

metals – Overfried and charred meats –

Environmen-tal Endocrine Disrupters (EED) – Micro-organisms –

Naturally occurring toxicants – Risk assessment –

The toxic tort – International law and food toxins –

Round-up

8 Genetically Modified Foods in South East Asia 171Emerging issues – The problem of labels –

Gleanings from the wider world –

International efforts – Risk assessment

Biological archetypes – After affluence – Natural

and organic food – Street foods – The concept of

healthy eating – Scientific uncertainty and the

unease of the public – Summing up

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85

be due to lack of something in the diet But of course a broken legneeds calcium for its healing, and calcium must be supplied in thediet if the bones are not to be weakened Moreover, the driver ofthe car may have been hypoglycaemic owing to anorexia or mayhave been imbibing too much of that peculiar nutrient, alcohol Sowhereas faulty nutrition can cause disease, good nutrition isimportant in treatment and management There is some difficulty

in linking nutrition with psychoses and neuroses, but not much

We read now that patients with schizophrenia may have insufficientn3 fatty acids in their cells and that they can be put into remission

by feeding these in fish, nuts and beans There is no problem infitting infectious diseases to the proposition, because it has beenknown for many years that proper nutrition is needed forimmunocompetence, not to mention orderly convalescence fromtheir ravages And in respect of infectious diseases, South EastAsia maintains a formidable prevalence, all the way from virus

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diseases like AIDS, through the bacterial forms such as tuberculosis,

to the plasmodium invasion of malaria

Little concern over the connection between diet andhealth is shown by governments, including the prototype worldgovernment, the United Nations, through its agencies, the WorldHealth Organisation (WHO) and the Food and AgriculturalOrganisation (FAO) Many societies are facing ageing populationswith an apparently infinite demand for healthcare It was one ofthe paradoxes of the 20th century that as disease, disability andpremature death were progressively overcome by medical science,the resources which had to be spent on healthcare as a wholeincreased exponentially This is because one has to die of something,and the period before death is associated with ever more expensivemedical technology; moreover, new and unsuspected hazards areever lurking round the corner Thus diabetics can be helped tosurvive by administering insulin, but at a fearful cost, later in life,

of kidney failure, amputations and blindness Many cancers can

be cured if detected early, but the survivors cannot avoidatherosclerosis, arthritis, osteoporosis and dementias, which arethe inevitable concomitants of long-term survival The story ofthe unexpected rise of HIV infection does not need retellinghere

What then can be more attractive to governments facing theheavy costs of medical subsidies than to prevent disease bypersuading their people to modulate their diets? Of course somegovernments have been more active than others In the UnitedStates, the Center for Disease Control hands out frequent andsensible advice Ministries of Health in many countries make surethat booklets explaining healthy eating are distributed to doctor’swaiting rooms and public libraries No government, as yet, actuallycompels people to eat a specific diet, but sometimes it induceschoice by fiscal means Thus the Malaysian government subsidises

11 foods at festival times, and milk powder permanently InNovember 2001 a shop in Kajang was fined 30,000 Malaysianringgit (US$8,000) for selling Dutch Lady milk (2.5 kg) at 39.30Malaysian ringgit (US$10), as against the controlled price of

33.30 Malaysian ringgit (US$9), in contravention of the TradeDescriptions Act of 1972 This strikes one as quite severe.

As writers we need not apologise for treating South East Asia

as a unit, for “few areas in the world have been so spectacularlydemarcated by nature”.1 The apparent extreme diversity oflanguage and culture gives way on closer examination to acoherence of ancestral language, a topography of water and forestand (importantly for this discusssion) a dominance of rice andfish in the diet, with a very small role for meat and dairy products.2

In the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) region as

a whole (to use the modern, geopolitical term), the officials mostconcerned with food are from the Ministries of Agriculture,sometimes also from those of Fisheries and Forestry At a recentmeeting, in October 2001, they mentioned food many times intheir Press releases, but their language (as they would be the first

to admit) is merely exhortatory Thus the Asian Vegetable Researchand Development Centre is required to address ASEAN’s need forgood quality/safe food and agricultural products It was also agreed

to set up an ASEAN food security information system In someparts of ASEAN, efforts at nutritional education might still seem

a luxury It was reported in 19983 that Indonesians were enteringMalaysia illegally in the hope of being arrested so that they couldenjoy proper meals in internment deportation camps, rather thanendless bowls of sweet potatoes and tapioca, which are of coursealmost pure starch The 25-km crossing from Sumatra to JohoreBahru at the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia is apparentlyeasily crossed, with a waiting list for transport; hence the newconcept of the “prospective illegal immigrant” Whether the story istrue or not, it shows that the majority of the people of South EastAsia have the problem of getting enough food merely to keep going

1 Reid A South East Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, vol 1 Yale University Press, New Haven, 1988, p 1.

2 See http://www.aseansec.org/newdata, accessed 20/11/01.

3 Straits Times, 6/3/89.

4 By area, not population Brunei is the smallest country in ASEAN by population.

A new entrant to the nations of the area, East Timor, is also not large in either population or area.

5 Straits Times, 11/3/97.

6 They were not unthinkable in the past During the Vietnam war the Thais sent a contingent to fight with the US troops; in the early sixties Indonesia took up arms against Malaysia.

In contrast, in Singapore, the smallest country,4 thegovernment has realised that oversufficiency is the main dietaryproblem, and it organises a symbolic, annual work-out on thePadang (the sports field) in front of the Supreme Court Also inSingapore, the Ministry of Health in 1997 embarked on a fullanalysis of 800 locally cooked dishes and analysed them for 22nutrients Considering that each nutrient was analysed severaltimes to acquire average values, one needs only simple arithmetic

to appreciate the magnitude of this task Initial results5 showedthat fibre, vitamin A and iron intakes were below recommenda-tions, whereas sodium and cholesterol intakes were higher Thisled to headshaking by the newspapers over the supposed excessconsumption of salt and animal fat

If there are few Ministers of Food in the ASEAN region, there

is a full complement of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, who at ameeting in August 2001 made a declaration, widely reported inthe Press, that a war between any of the member-states was nowunthinkable.6 This is a reminder that the best endeavours of agovernment to improve the health of its citizens, by dietary orother means, can be destroyed by war That was vividly broughthome by the near-emaciated appearance of the Vietnamese wesaw on film and television during the conflict there One wouldhope that wars fought for reasons of national pride are at an end,but the threatened attack on Taiwan by the People’s Republic ofChina gives pause thereon It has often been suggested, on theother hand, that future wars will be fought over water However,ASEAN, with the exception of Singapore, does not seem to beshort of water According to an editorial in the Lancet:

“… some disasters build slowly and quietly… and such isthe drought currently plaguing Iran, South China, the MiddleEast, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, South Korea and centralAmerica The United Nations estimates some 25 million waterrefugees…”7

South East Asia is notably absent from this long list Water is themainstay of agriculture, and agriculture means food To theobjection that some wars, for example the Gulf War of 1990, werefought over oil, it must be stated that oil is only the means bywhich food is produced, processed and transported The West, asoften, has shown the wrong way The assassination of ArchdukeFerdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 was not the cause of the First WorldWar; it was about hegemony on the continent, which meantexpansion of territory, which meant food The Second World Warwas merely an extension of the First and was even more predicated

on food – the desire of Germany for wheat from the Ukraine and

of the Japanese for rice from Burma and Indonesia If such disasterscan now be averted and if some modest prosperity can be clawedfrom an economic upturn subsequent to the current slump, then

we may see genuine food choice operating all over Asia, with thedelightful increase in the quality of life which that entrains

7 Editorial, Lancet 358 (2001) 1025 In South East Asia, the control of major water resources, like the Mekong, seems to continue to be settled amicably There is, however, something of a dispute over the supply of water to Singapore by Malaysia.

Some language

The necessity for human beings to take in food at regular intervalsseems so mundane and obvious that its patterns and paradigms,until recently, have been peripheral to sociology, a discipline which,

at least in its scientific sense, slightly predates nutrition science Itseems that social anthropologists have taken more heed of food1and have even managed to link the origin of monogamy to it.Thus, it is thought that the early human fathers may have providedfood for their mates to ensure fidelity; that is, while away from thecave on hunting expeditions they could be sure that, in exchangefor food, their mates would exclude the possibility of impregnation

by other males, thus ensuring the propagation of their owngenes.2 In modern times Levi-Strauss is often quoted as writing:

“Food must not only be good to eat, but also good to think” As

a structural sociologist (indeed the founder of the school) he

Patterns of Food Avoidance and Selection

1

1

1 Murcott A World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics 55 (1988) 1.

2 It has to be noted that at present this theory is somewhat in the shade See Hagmann

M Science 283 (1999) 777.

maintained that myths cannot be understood in isolation, but only

as parts of an extended system In other words, the connections ofand transformations between myths (the structure) are what isimportant, not the myths themselves Since Levi-Strauss’s seminalbook on the subject is called The Raw and the Cooked,3 the analogies

to the overall pattern of food consumption, as opposed to thechoice of specific foods, become obvious The other great authority

on the social significance of food in the last century, Douglas, issaid to be equally structuralist in that we can understand culinarytradition as only a part of the total cultural experience of anindividual.4

We write as nutritionists, not sociologists or anthropologists.Nutrition science and its empirical foundation, biochemistry, havefrom the beginning been concerned not with human behaviourbut with human health They have been very successful in workingout the types and quantities of nutrients that the body needs formaintaining growth and well-being.5 It is still thrilling to read thestory of the discovery of vitamin B1 in Jakarta, when the Dutchphysician Eijkman realised that there was something in rice chaffwhich prevented his pet chickens from contracting a type ofneuropathy So now, we are advised to choose brown rather thanwhite bread when we go to the supermarket or the bakery If weprefer (process being comparable) to buy white bread, that maynot be in our best interests, but is in accord with the observation

of anthropologists that even in the most deprived communitiesand tribes some sort of food choice operates, if only on festivaloccasions Choice means challenge; as Sclafani puts it: “Foodselection represents a major challenge for omnivorous species.Faced with a variety of foodstuffs, many beneficial and some

3 Levi-Strauss C The Raw and the Cooked Jonathan Cape, London, 1970.

4 Douglas M Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Purity and Taboo Routledge and Keegan Paul, London, 1966.

5 But not completely successful It has proved impossible, for example, to determine exactly the amounts of protein needed in the diets of either individuals or groups.

deleterious, the omnivore must decide which to eat and which toreject”.6

In this work we wish to explore the patterns of food choice inSouth East Asia, and we feel it necessary, initially, to investigatewhether there is any language to describe the categories of choice

We are aware that this matrix has been addressed by eminentanthropologists,7 but their approach is integrative to society as awhole We dare not go that far It may also be necessary to adoptsome neologisms Coinage of words is a pleasant pastime forpedants wishing to show off their roots (usually Greek), but can

be tiresome for their readers, if they are fortunate enough to gainany Nonetheless, there do not seem to be any existing descriptiveswhich succinctly define some of the concepts to be explored inthis small book However, some terms relating to what one mayloosely describe as the psychology of food choice do indeed pre-exist The term lipophobia has been adopted by Fischler8 — it refers

to the excessive abhorrence of fats in connection with obesity,heart disease and cancer (He could have been more concise andcalled it spratism, after Jack Sprat.) Fruitarian has been introduced

or at least used by Walker9 for those advocating massiveconsumption of fruit in the interests of health (largely in theinterests of acquiring vitamin C, supposedly to ward off cancer,and potassium to reduce hypertension) The word carboholic,meaning a person excessively fond of starchy foods, and whichhints at present or future obesity, has been in currency for sometime Neophobism (fear of new things) and neophilism (love of newthings) have been used in connection with food, but obviously donot refer specifically to it

6 Sclafani A Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 54 (1994) 417.

Avoidance of specific foods

In connection with avoiding foods, the first term which comes tomind is taboo – originally Polynesian, and according to the OxfordEnglish Dictionary imported into English (and possibly many otherlanguages) by none other than Captain James Cook after he notedits use in Tonga It readily entered into common currency, implyingthat there was a socio-linguistic need for it – although it has roughlythe same meaning as superstition, this latter term has a more weak-minded connotation Taboo is a useful word to fall back on, but istoo wide to be useful in every situation of food avoidance Onecan perhaps delineate six reasons for eschewing specific foods.(We are not here concerned with the avoidance of all food Thosewho avoid food in general, like prisoners on hunger strike andanorexics, also have made a choice, but not a choice specific tocertain foods.) Avoidance attitudes, then, can perhaps be classifiedas:

1 Foods thought to be dirty, dangerous or obnoxious ongrounds which can be substantiated by science, observation

or common sense A recent example would be the avoidance

of beef thought to be associated with bovine spongiformencephalopathy or its human sequel, Jacob–Creutzfeldtdisease Alcoholic beverages are sensibly avoided by thosewho exhibit the alcohol-flushing syndrome (Chapter 3) andmilk by those suffering from lactose intolerance (Chap-ter 2) An ancient example would be the avoidance of beans

by followers of the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras,who evidently had some empirical knowledge of thehaemolytic condition now called favism, caused by defects

in the gene for the enzyme glucose 6-phosphate hydrogenase A reasonable term to describe this mode ofchoice would be acacophagia from the Greek roots caco- (bad,poor, sick) and phagia (eat) A specialised aspect is of coursevegetarianism, where the practitioner abstains from meatproducts for health reasons, as opposed to religiousconviction

Here we must include the avoidance of animal products

– vegetarianism in other words Many would regard this

as a rational choice in the interests of health insofar as itminimises saturated fat intake, includes a sufficient variety

of plant foods, and contains much fibre and a goodcomplement of vitamins and minerals The avoidance offoods which are not “natural” or “organic”, a very modernphenomenon, will also have to be noted here (and ismentioned again in Chapter 9)

2 Foods associated with the nature of one’s condition Herethe food is not in itself obnoxious, or at fault; rather it istemporarily to be avoided because of some specialcircumstance Such avoidances are often associated withpregnancy and lactation Eschewing alcoholic beverages inthose states would be an example In the East, while doingtheir stint as Buddhist monks, men avoid “heaty” foods.Into this category too we have to put medical prohibitions,such as the limitations on dietary protein in those withkidney disease This category seems to elide into the oneabove, but the crucial distinction is that, in this context,there is nothing wrong with the food; if anything, it is theabstainer who is deficient It is difficult to ascribe a singlename to this category, because so many different strandscontribute to it A variant, or an extension of it, though, isthe avoidance of foods handled by others in a conditionthought unsatisfactory; thus in some societies men will noteat food prepared by menstruating women

3 Foods avoided because of class distinctions It is said thatsome Indians of high castes will not eat food prepared bylower castes Otherwise, there may well be foods chosen

by or reserved for the elite and avoided by the lower classesfor that reason, or conversely (more commonly) foodseschewed by the elite because of prominent consumption

by the commonality Thus Whitehead points out that foodcarries complex cultural meanings: “ think of muesli andbeef burgers, smoked salmon and prawn cocktail, chocolate

eclairs and steamed jam pudding”.10 The implication is thatjam pudding tastes very nice, by all accounts, but is avoided

by those with some discrimination The concept wasexplored in some depth 100 years ago by Veblen, whocoined the term “conspicuous consumption” In The Theory

of the Leisure Class, he points out that in a primitive(he calls it a “predatory”) culture, the only economicdifferentiation is between a superior class made up of able-bodied men and an inferior class of labouring women Theconsumption of choice articles of food, and frequently also

of articles of adornment, becomes “tabu” to the womenand children; if there is a “servile” class of men, it becomestabu to them also Under the tabu certain “victuals”, andmore particularly certain beverages, are strictly reservedfor the use of the superior class To quote him: “Since theconsumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence

of wealth, it becomes honorific; and conversely, the failure

to consume in due quantity and quality becomes a mark ofinferiority and demerit”.11 To jump 100 years from Veblen,there may well still be “servile” beings who do not drinkchampagne because they believe it is reserved for the upperclasses (but they must be few) There may well be aristocratswho will touch neither fish and chips nor a Big Mac, not

on the grounds of palatability, but rather by dint of disdainfor the non-discriminating classes But we venture to assertthat such phenomena are all but unknown in South EastAsia One can discern this in respect of street food In thispart of the world everybody eats in the street (meaningstreet stalls, rather than pavement cafes fronting bistros).All classes will flock to the scruffiest stall if its reputation

is good This category of avoidance may be described asVeblenism, because he pioneered its description

10 Whitehead A In: Food (Harriss-White B and Hoffenberg R, Eds) Blackwell, Oxford, 1994, p 116.

11 Veblen T The Theory of the Leisure Class Allen and Unwin, London, 1959.

4 Foods associated with unpleasant people, like enemies Onemay argue again that this elides into item 3 above, if one’santagonists in the class war are considered unpleasant Onecould consider (in a less Marxist frame) that if skinheads,who like to go to the seaside and cause rumpuses, wereknown to be fond of specific foods (lager beer, perhaps),such foods would find little favour with seasidelandladies.12 At the time of writing this (October 2001) itseems probable that if it becomes known that Osama binLaden is preternaturally fond of pitta bread, we are surethat sales of pitta bread will decline all over the world The20th century was full of unpleasant – in fact, abominable

– heads of state, and perhaps fortunately for sections of thefood industry, few of their dietary preferences becamepublic We did know a historian, an expert on the ThirdReich, who would never touch vegetarian spaghetti becausethat was Hitler’s last meal in the Berlin bunker before heshot himself It is quite possible that if when visitingPenang, say, you are beaten up, robbed, minimally helped

by the police, and let down by the medical services, youwill never touch Penang laksa again

The English thought that the French existed largely onfrogs and snails, and these never found a place on tables

in England when that nation was the traditional enemy InSouth East Asia there are admittedly few parallels.Memories of the Japanese occupation are still strong, there

is much discontent about the lack of veracity in Japanesehistory books, but Japanese food is very popular

5 Foods derived from pleasant animals, such as pets Manyyoung ladies will not eat rabbit Most Europeans and Asianswill never eat dogs or cats People of most countries do notlike to eat horses, and the reason for this has caused some

12 Groups of youths (“skinheads”) gravitate towards the seaside resorts in summertime Europe and cause disruption by their rowdy behaviour.

speculation among historians and anthropologists.Apparently, the earliest domesticated horses were used formeat – they were not at that stage strong enough in theback to bear a human being Some say that in Europe atany rate the eschewing of horsemeat derives from aninjunction of Pope Gregory III in 732, who was seeking toput an end to a pagan practice Others believe that thebenefits in agriculture, warfare and transport conferred bythe horse, as long as it did not eat too much grain,outweighed its potential food value Then again there mayjust be respect for the horse, rather similar to that of theHindu for the cow We do not believe there is any equivalentabhorrence of eating pleasant or familiar plants Thediffidence about eating pets can be called acyonophagia fromthe Greek cyono-, dog.

6 Foods derived from unpleasant animals (or plants), sorendered because of cultural tradition or straight religiousprohibition This refers to the well-known prohibition ofpork in the Jewish and Muslim faiths, of alcohol in thelatter, and of beef in the Hindu system, and these are sowell known as to need no elaboration Coffee and tea arenot taken by Mormons Seventh Day Adventists do not eatanimal foods In one of the major religions of Asia (andnow elsewhere), Buddhism, there is a reluctance to eat allanimal foods, especially beef Superficially, no neologismsare needed for these If the avoidance is part of your ownreligion it is called a prohibition; if it is embodied in thereligion of somebody else you call it a taboo It is suspected

by anthropologists that many of these avoidances are morecomprehensible if one accepts the view that religious beliefs

– here in the context of food – have little to do withspirituality but a lot to do with the social cohesiveness ofparticular groups It has to be said, also, that the divisionbetween pleasant and unpleasant animals may be atbase elusive, because at least in unsophisticated societiesthere is a tendency to overestimate the mental processes of

animals Thus the Kenyahs of Borneo, if about to go fishing,speak of the matter as little as possible lest the birds shouldoverhear their conversations and inform the fish of theirpurpose, so that the latter can swim away downstream.That is why many groups will not kill and eat any creature

so malignant looking and potentially harmful as a snake

So forbidden food animals are more respected than detested.The probiscus monkey looks too human (and therefore toointelligent) to be eaten by some Bornean tribes

Clearly, there is an interaction with the first categoryabove if the religious prohibitions are derived, orsupposedly derived, to protect co-religionists from thedangers of unwholesome food But pork, according toHarris,13 is banned in the Jewish and Muslim faiths notbecause it is unwholesome, but because the pig was anunsuitable animal for the Middle East, in that it needs shadeand water to keep cool and food other than grass It may

be that beef is unwelcome to Buddhists not because it isunwholesome as such, but because it is “heaty” and soinflames the senses

Selection of specific foods

Again, this enquiry looks at particular foods, or food categories,rather than active gluttony/gourmandising (known scientifically

as hyperphagia) as such Whether or not, as mentioned above,sociologists have taken much interest in food choice, there is nodebate about the interest of those whose business is marketing,which may be loosely defined as the means of making people buythings they do not particularly want Drew summarises the process

as being, first of all, a perception, by the consumer, which formspart of an attitude, leading to a behavioural intention, culminating in

13 Harris M Good to Eat Simon and Schuster, New York, 1985, p 84.

what can be directly observed, namely a behaviour The first ofthese is said to be fuelled by both myth and information.14 We donot propose an analysis of this complexity; suffice it to claim thatthere are at least six modes of choice, and most of them are based

on myth rather than on information

1 Eating the flesh of the slain enemy to gain his stics, strength, prowess or fame This is not like

characteri-“conventional” cannibalism (if there is such a thing, seeChapter 2), undertaken in an emergency merely to stayalive Like the others below, it operates when there isotherwise food in plenty In modern times Idi Amin,the former boss of Uganda, was said to practise thishabit This could be called dynophagia, from the Greekdyno-, or power

A report in the Straits Times during the Indonesiantroubles in 1999 had it that in the Sambas district ofKalimantan, gangs of Malays and Dayaks were huntingdown Madurese and “… in one grisly scene, the body ofone man was burned at the market place in Sambas andsmall shredded bits of liver of the victim were offered tothe public… in the local tradition of eating parts of one’senemy”.15

Another variant, also from Indonesia, is exhibited by themarathon runner Ruwiyati, who drinks some blood fromher coach’s finger before the start of every race The report16did not state how the blood is obtained, but this appears

to be a version of what psychiatrists call vampirism, and it

is said that such rituals “… are involved in battle andinitiation ceremonies as well as dietary and fertility mores”.17

14 Drew K In: Understanding Natural Flavours (Piggot J R and Paterson A, Eds) Blackie Academic and Professional, London, 1994, p 165.

15 Straits Times, 11/7/99.

16 Straits Times, 31/10/97.

17 Fahy T, Wessley S and David A Medicine, Science and the Law 28 (1988) 145.

This harks back, perhaps, to the Romans struggling to obtaindrops of the blood of victorious gladiators, believing that

it would give them muscular strength

2 Eating expensive foods to demonstrate one’s wealth Noteverybody likes caviar, but not a few eat it in spite of that.The most expensive food is thought to be truffles, worthmore than their weight in gold Most prized is the blackPerigord truffle Tuber melanosporum Truffle juice, whichmust be largely water, is selling at 500 dollars for a smallcan in our local supermarket There is no way that anutritional benefit can justify this price Champagne isgenerally bought to demonstrate largesse, less for its taste

In Asia, consumption of thin slices of fugu, the puffer fish,part of a set meal costing perhaps 200 US dollars, must bemore for prestige than for nutritional value Plutophagy, oreating money, seems a reasonable enough term for thisgeneral phenomenon Possibly also arristipism, afterArristipus, the Greek philosopher who was the epitome ofself-indulgence It has to be said that in South East Asia, it

is the Chinese communities which mostly seem to exhibitthis characteristic The food writer Margaret Chan describesgoing to a gourmet restaurant in Singapore in 1992 Shewas sitting near a family of five, which included threechildren under 10, consuming 2,000 dollars of abalone Theabalone king Yeung Koon Yat apparently uses only driedabalone from Japan and simmers them for 13 hours Onehotel sells only the best grade sharksfin and charges over

100 dollars per bowl In a sense this is the converse of item

3 above – it is but Thorstein Veblen’s picture of conspicuousconsumption

The most extreme form of plutophagy of course is eatinggold itself One reads of cakes, in mediaeval Europe, beinggilded with real gold, and there are liqueurs with goldflakes which glitter in the light as the glass is tipped InAsia the practice of eating gold is said to be most prevalent

in Japan and Thailand – apparently not only to demonstrate

wealth, but also to make complexions glow like gold There

is a fish called the arowana – the dragon fish – which isnormally kept as a pet and is thought to bring good luck,but is occasionally eaten if its scales are sufficientlyendowed with a golden lustre There have been recentnewspaper reports too that sprinkling gold dust on drinkshas become fashionable in Korea In an analogy to thehistorical sumptuary laws, the Korea Food and DrugAdministration has recently banned the sale of driedcorvine fish covered in gold foil

There is a curious inversion of this category There is oftenostentation associated with slimming, that is withabstinence from foods, or rather the selection of slimmingfoods that are expensive Only the rich obese can affordthe Scarsdale diet and the Beverley Hills diet – twoquintessentially affluent neighbourhoods The ingredients

of the diets may not in themselves be expensive, but theremust be freedom from hard physical work to permit thechoice

3 Eating foods habitually consumed by those one admires todemonstrate an identity of taste – not necessarily goodtaste and not necessarily expensive taste When RonaldReagan became President, he gave out that he liked jellybeans, and there was boom in their sale, at least amongRepublicans If in the sixties it had been put about inthe media that the Beatles liked rhubarb jam, then millions

of young people would have been eating rhubarb jam.This is the converse of item 4 above – it may be calledambrosiophagy, or eating the food of the gods

The person whose food choice is copied may not be somuch likeable as merely powerful Power in South EastAsia was formerly in the hands of the colonial masters,and it would not be surprising if these had managed tomodulate food choice Reynolds18 points out that Britain

18 Reynolds D Britain Overruled Longman, London and New York, 1991, p 303.

colonised more informally than the French, whose “heavyhand made a more durable mark, particularly via thepolitics of language and culture” Within culture one canemplace food, and certainly if you look at the street stalls

in Vietnam you can see French bread and cheese rankedhigh There are no street stalls in Singapore or Malaysiaselling Cheddar cheese or Cornish pasties

This category must necessarily include the sharing ofritual food with co-religionists, among whose number willgenerally be a priest or some holy man who is admired or

at least respected The foods chosen in this context aregenerally simple bread or dates for example The people ofEthiopia formerly used the Maria Theresa dollar as currency,but since it was quite valuable they had small bars ofcrystallised salt which were traded at about one-fifth ofthe dollar Friends meeting together would give each other

a lick of these, which thereby became devalued, rather inthe manner of coins being pared at the circumference beforemilling was introduced In further extension, those admiredmay be merely one’s own cohort, who will further enhanceinterpersonal bonding by introducing more choices Thesechoices may extend somewhat beyond food as such, asBleibtrau notes:

“In many cultures… the more ceremonial the meal, themore likely it will be that some behaviour alteringchemical will be served with the food (if only alcohol),but even tea and coffee are stimulants… And amongtobacco smokers, smoking may be a substitute for foodexchange [Moreover] it is a truism among anthro-pologists that one can learn more about the structure of

a strange society by observing who eats with whom thanwith who sleeps with whom”.19

19 Bleibtrau J The Parable of the Beast Granada Publishing, Hertfordshire, 1976,

p 167.

4 Eating foods with specific shapes to acquire thecharacteristics associated with those shapes The rhino horn,although not really a food, is the prime example of thistendency Antler horn scrapings come into the samecategory There are certainly examples from the West – leekshave the expected aphrodisiacal connotations owing to theirshape A term for this may be morphophagy after morph- forshape, but iconophagy after icon-, an idol or image, mightalso serve In its extreme form, since apparently the penes

of bulls and tigers are eaten, it is phallophagy

5 Eating foods with benign linguistic associations This seems

to be a particular Chinese characteristic, which is explored

in more detail later (Chapter 5) A simple example is theselection of pineapples during the New Year festival because

in Hokkien they are called ong lai, which sounds somewhatlike “good business” This can be conveniently calledlogophagy, alternatively glossophagy No doubt, in trying toinfluence consumer choice, this sort of thing is whatfood manufacturers and advertisers are trying to do all thetime with brand names Generally, however, theyseem to be stuck with a proper name, that of the founder

of the firm – if not, they break free with items like Sunshineand Sunblest bread, both of which have a pleasant ring tothem

6 Foods as straight nostrums An example would be boiled chicken, sometimes called chicken essence, which

double-in South East Asia is thought to be good for the blood.Among many others are the consumption of fruits toincrease intake of antioxidants, and wholemeal bread topromote laxation These are functional foods, otherwiseknown as nutriceuticals or pharmafoods (see Chapter 6).Herein would come the choice of heating or cooling foods,which is also dealt with later (Chapter 3) There are peculiarmanifestations of this mode of choice which does not needany special name It was reported that during the Asian

Games in Bangkok in December 1998, many of the athletesfrequented restaurants supplying cobra dishes to enhanceathletic prowess.20 A fringe activity, even more bizarre, ispouring the blood of newly decapitated cobras into a glass

of Johnny Walker whisky to ward off possible venerealdisease after unsafe sex in South Thailand Apparently, ithas to be Johnny Walker whisky, for reasons which, aftermuch enquiry, we have not been able to discover

Some observations

Aphrodisiacs as choice foods fall into several of the categoriesabove; indeed, their range extends to non-foodstuffs (They aredealt with in more detail in Chapter 3.) Also, religious beliefsunderpin some of the choices (in addition to avoidances, which

on the whole are more prominent) as when myth merges intoreligion It is also noticeable that there are analogies to other aspects

of human choice Just as we do not choose foods merely to stayalive, so also we do not always speak to each other merely tocommunicate “Phatic” exchanges like “Terrible day, isn’t it?” areanalogous to offering a sweet to someone who isn’t hungry butwho takes it just the same (“Go on, have one!”) So also, clothesare seldom bought merely to keep warm, except in the poorestsocieties Just as in Tudor England, peasants were once forbidden

to eat foods reserved for the gentry, so by the “sumptuary laws”they were forbidden certain extravagancies in dress.21 Copying

20 Straits Times, 22/12/98.

21 For example, cloth of gold or silver or purple silk was reserved for those of and above the rank of earl There were also sumptuary laws in the East – see Reid A In: South East Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, vol 1 Yale University Press, New Haven, 1988, p 85 Reid mentions restrictions on the extent to which gold could be worn, and in Malaya in particular, the wearing of yellow cloth, with its association with gold, was reserved for royalty.

the rich in their food choices also has analogies to copying theirdiseases Thus, according to William Heberden, “… some maladieshave been esteemed honourable, or because they usually belong

to the wealthy…’’22 So gout has its associations with game andport wine, and possibly also caviar, which will certainly not helpthe disease, being replete with purine bases.23 (All these, of course,are aspects of Levi-Strauss’s structural sociology.)

At the other end of the scale, poverty destroys choice, in food

as in other matters As we write, food is being dropped from theair into Afghan refugee camps, but the newspapers report thatthe effort is sporadic, so that in some villages the inhabitantsare eating grass There the concept of food choice must seem verynebulous

22 Quoted in The Oxford Medical Companion (Walton J, Baroness Warnock J A and Lock S, Eds) Oxford University Press, London, 1994, p 733.

23 Purine bases are one of the components of DNA and so are high in organ meats such as liver, kidney and some pulses They are metabolised to uric acid which is deposited in the joints in gouty arthritis.

“Unusual” foods and the law

We have already observed that the English used to refer to theFrench as “frogs” because of the firm belief that this amphibianconstituted the larger part of their diet, and contributed to thedemonisation of an enemy in many wars before the mid-19thcentury (Similarly, the Germans were sometimes referred to as

“krauts”, after the fermented cabbage which was supposedly theirstaple diet.) Nowadays most of the more Northern races willhappily consume the garlic-laden legs of frogs as long as somebodyelse is prepared to do the catching, killing and dismembering;they have yet, however, to overcome more serious barriersconstituted by unusual foods in the East These “unusual” foodsare many and varied Perhaps the monkey brain is the epitome ofsuch – every traveller to the East quickly learns about this much-reviled “dish” Rich and hypolibidoed males are reputed to scoopmonkey’s brain from a hole in a table through which the animal’sdecraniated head is protruding People will tell you this is thegospel truth, although we have never spoken to anybody who hasdirectly witnessed it We doubt if it happens, at least at the presenttime Other versions give out that the monkey brain is cookedwith wine and herbs, something which there is no reason to

Nice or Nasty?

2

17

disbelieve Brains have always been eaten, although they havefallen into disfavour in view of their high cholesterol content, thehighest among all natural foods.

Anecdotal reports suggest that the search for unusual foods,usually wild animals, is prevalent among the males of South EastAsia, especially, it has to be said, among the Chinese.1 However,those who capture or supply such foods are likely to fall foul ofthe various pieces of wildlife legislation These are of two genres,domestic and international Most countries have passed endangeredspecies acts which protect select animals and plants, within theirown boundaries, from collecting or trapping, or indeed, usually,any kind of harm To complement this, some countries havepublished lists of endangered species as “red books”, for examplethe Singapore Red Book.2 This details several species which arehunted for food, such as the dugong, the civet cat, the mouse deer,the pangolin, the giant squirrel and the flying fox The last isactually a bat and is large enough to make a good meal, its wingspan reaching 150 cm In addition, in Kuala Lumpur in 1985, theforeign ministers of the then six ASEAN nations signed the ASEANAgreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.This was reckoned by the World Conservation Union, better knowneven after its name change as IUCN, to be significant for itsunusually binding nature (ASEAN nations are said to preferagreements that depend on consensus rather than policing.) Itincluded the establishment of legal principles governing thecreation, operation and use of gene banks and the protection ofendangered species

Further, all countries in the region with the exception of Laoshave ratified the Convention on International Trade in Endange-red Species (CITES), which was initiated by the United States in

1975 Under it, countries are obliged by international law to prevent

1 The authors of A Guide to Threatened Animals of Singapore (Ng P K L, Murphy D, Lim K K P, Chou L M and Lane D J W; Singapore Science Centre, 1995) make this assertion on several pages.

2 The Singapore Red Book Singapore Nature Society, 1992.

the international transfer and/or sale of endangered species, ortheir products, like meat, skins and feathers, and in the face ofbreaches, mount prosecutions The secretariat to the Conventionacts as a clearing house for information on the species which arebecoming endangered, and delegates from all parties to it issueperiodic revisions of the lists which specify the species to beprotected These are in the three appendices to the Convention.CITES does not, however, possess any regulatory powers of itsown, and each country has to frame suitable domestic laws inaccordance with it The Convention also allows for export quotasfor a species even if it is endangered Thus, in 1992 a quota for theIndonesian salt water crocodile – or rather its treated skin – wasestablished An animal can be downgraded from Appendix 1 (themost endangered list) to Appendix 2 if there is evidence that

“ranching” is conserving its numbers The Indonesian crocodilewas downgraded for this reason Thus if the above-mentionedspecies which are desirable, in some quarters, for food – thepangolin, for example, which is on CITES, Appendix 2 – could bebred in captivity, they could be imported to Hong Kong andSingapore to satisfy the taste for exotic food

The problem with both domestic and international regulation

is, of course, enforcement In Singapore at least, there are sporadicreports of prosecutions under the Endangered Species Act, but itsborders are tight and its own wildlife meagre Wildlife inspectorsare needed but are not in general available, so the task falls on thecustoms officials and the police There is much evidence that thepolice regard their time as being too precious for them to go aroundsaving pangolins and bats, as opposed to catching dangerouscriminals It has to be admitted that the general public may wellagree with this sentiment Nonetheless, sporadic arrests andprosecutions do occur It was reported that, in April 2002, theMalaysian customs authorities discovered no fewer than 1,200frozen pangolins under a load of fish They were bound from theport of Klang to Vietnam where, apparently, their scales are reputed

to reduce body temperature and their flesh to be aphrodisiacal

We now turn to some examples of “unusual” foods

Insect eating

With a few exceptions, noted below, insects, like bacteria, althoughliving things, have no rights Nobody except entomologists try toprotect them in general, and CITES is silent on their conservation

as such The Appendices to it and the Singapore Red Book list severalbutterflies as being endangered, but these are collected for theirbeauty, not for their nutritional value About 20 insects are entered

in the latter, but none of these are cited as endangered becausethey are collected for human food In one of his authoritativebooks,3 Harris discusses the anthropology of insect eating Hemaintains that we come from a long line of insect eaters, and thatnowadays they are not eaten because they are dirty and loathsome;rather they become dirty and loathsome because we do not eatthem He waxes at some length on the place of insects in theChinese diet and their role in making up the deficiency of proteinand fat in peasants In a rather gruesome tone, he relates anecdotes

of peasants in overcrowded conditions gaining a little more protein

by cracking each other’s lice between their teeth

Termite larvae, called sago worms locally, can be seen in thefood market in Kuching, happily crawling in and out of rottenwood All the rest of the non-vegetable food in the market are dead

or dying (except for some fish in tanks), so the larvae are theepitome of freshness The newspapers in South East Asia are fond

of news snippets on insect eating One Associated Press piece4describes the enthusiasm for insect eating at an agricultural fair inBangkok These were crickets and locusts, which were stirfried,pasteurised and then canned They were described by one customer

as delicious, and seem to have been established as a snack withdrinks, rather like peanuts or small salt fish more common in bars.One consumer made the novel suggestion that collection andcanning should be extended to all insects harmful to crops, so that

3 Harris M Good to Eat Simon and Schuster, New York, 1985, p 154.

4 Straits Times, 17/1/00.

insecticide use can be reduced Another piece5 shows a photograph

of a Cambodian girl selling ant larvae at a refugee camp Cambodia

is again the site for another story about crickets which appear ingreat numbers in the rainy season.6 These are lightly grilled, eachwith a peanut emplaced in the abdomen In 1995 it was reported7that termite eating in Johore had become fashionable At 4 a.m thehunters look for nests around the plantations, and when a nest islocated it is lifted whole and transported to shops where the insectsare cracked open The queen is about 5 by 1 cm in size and is eatenwhole after it is dipped in whisky The correspondent Alison Limdescribed it as tasteless One Singaporean eats them for aches andpains in his legs In a bizarre incident the buyer of a flat found itinfested with mealworms, and there having been some disputeover the transfer of the property, assumed that the wormsrepresented some kind of black magic It turned out that the sellerhad bought the worms in Thailand, for snacks at a Christmas party($10 per 500 g), and claimed that they had escaped and multipliedduring the handover.8The reporter You Jin describes the eating, inChangchun, of silk worm chrysalises, which are said to be superiorbecause they have no feelers, claws or hairy legs But this is aseasonal food, available only in early winter.9 Marvin Harris statesthat the insects habitually eaten in China include silkworm pupae,cicadas, crickets, giant water beetles (Lethocerus indicus), stinkbugs,cockroaches and fly maggots.3 He relates insect eating to what hehas called optimal foraging theory, although we deal with this under

“cannibalism” below

One has to conclude that Thailand is the locus classicus of insecteating, although the authorities seem ambivalent on the matter.One Medical Institute warns of the danger of insecticide

poisoning,10 while another piece reports that the Health Ministryhas identified 50 kinds of insects that are edible.11 Special farmsare to be set up to explore the possibility of insect farming This

is not only for their yield of protein and fat – better than that ofconventional farm animals and less trouble to produce – but alsofor their medicinal value The latter however takes a bit ofswallowing, because one of the cures for liver disease requires theconsumption of live cockroaches The topic has even been thesubject of an academic study12 in which it is stated that most ofthe people, rich or poor, prefer wild foods to cultivated foods This

is an area in which only one crop of rice can be grown every yearowing to aridity, and so the freshwater fish, crabs, snails, shrimps,birds, red ants’ eggs, frogs, toads, rabbits, rats and insects arevaluable food sources

It has to be said that it is not only the Thais who see insects

as the food of the future.13 One enthusiast claims that there are1,462 recorded edible species They are easy to breed and do not

in general need butchering Such advocates do not generallymention their gut contents, however, which presumably are notremoved in the absence of butchering The topic is of someenduring fascination for the West, and the authors of one bookdescribe insect eating in Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Uganda,Peru, Venezuela and the USA.14

Cats and dogs

Meat eaters, worldwide, are associated with pastures and prairies,not with thickly forested islands and peninsulas So the tradition

of meat eating never has been prevalent in South East Asia.However, where there was locally a preference for meat eating,dogs and cats do not seem to have been particularly eschewed.15

Of course, from the nutritional point of view the meat from dogsand cats is as good as that from more conventional food animals

In many Muslim areas, of course, the dog is regarded as cularly unclean, on a par with the pig

Going slightly further afield, various newspaper reports in

1999 related to a spate of cat thefts in Beijing This plunderingwas not for their attractiveness as pets but for their flesh, in agourmet dish called Dragon and Tiger Fight, which also includessnake meat This aroused general opprobrium, partly because thecats had high concentrations of rat poison in their tissues Acorrespondent in Hunan informs us that dog eating is still verymuch the practice there, but only in the winter when it givesprotection against the cold The Lins state that a traditionalChinese dish is salt-cured pheasant fried in dog fat, in the interests

of providing a dish containing contrasting flavours.16 Curiously,dog eating has just become entangled with the (football) WorldCup of 2002 The retired actress Brigitte Bardot, now active in theanimal rights movement, castigated the Koreans for this practiceand told them that it would detract from the competition Shewas joined in her endeavours by a pressure group in Singaporecalled the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society Theseprotestors are advocating what we have called acyonophagia inChapter 1 The Koreans have retaliated by complaining that MissBardot’s comments are a slight to their culture, that pet dogs arenot eaten and that a special indigenous breed called Jindo is anational treasure.17

15 Reid A (In: South East Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, vol 1 Yale University Press, New Haven, 1988, p 32) quotes several early travellers who attest to this Reid also theorises that meat eating attained a ritual status because of its close association with sacrifice of an animal life, so much a feature of the ancestral religions

of the area.

16 Lin H J and Lin T F Chinese Gastronomy Nelson and Sons, London, 1969.

17 Straits Times, 24/12/01.

French gastronomic influence in Ho Chi Min City.

Fish head curry, a South East Asian delicacy unknown elsewhere.

In 1995 some enterprising people imported the South Americanrodent, the coypu, into Thailand on a pyramid selling scheme.Each breeding pair was offered to local farmers for 30,000 Thaibaht (US$670) each, with “guarantee” of buy back of each offspringfor 4,000 Thai baht (US$90) Since these offspring were sold toothers at 30,000 Thai baht (US$670) per pair, the entrepreneurshad evidently found a way of printing money The animals werereckoned to provide not only meat, for humans apparently, butalso potions for sexual prowess and fur Of course there was littlemarket for the meat, apart from the crocodile farms, and theysoon escaped into a feral condition, to the distress of suburbanneighbourhoods suddenly infested with what looked liked rats,the size of mature tomcats.18 Somnasang, in his studies of unusualfoods in north-eastern Thailand, reports that the villagers eat thewhite rats, which are found in the paddy fields, but not houserats.12 The Straits Times reported that in the Buri Ram province ofThailand, when leptospirosis became prevalent, the inhabitantstried to fight the disease by eating the rats We suppose this waseffective as long as they were well cooked.19 We have come across

no reports about consumption of rodents in other parts of SouthEast Asia It has been pointed out that rodents have much potentialfor enhancing the world’s food supply At the moment only sixanimals predominate as food sources, but according to standardzoology texts, one quarter of all the mammals are rat-like or rodents.The copybara in South America, for example, has been farmed