Abstract
Without necessarily claiming any religious motivation it is possible to invoke reasons of morality to support particular eating habits. A good example of this is the whole business of non-meat-eating. Although non-meat-eating is a characteristic of several religions it is a practice also enthusiastically embraced by many who would not consider themselves religious in the nominal sense of the word. Moral attitudes also influence other aspects of food behaviour such as types of food eaten and amount of money spent on food, and are expressed in the contrasting philosophies of ‘eating to live’ and ‘living to eat’.
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Further Reading
Macrobiotics as a way of life is described in Aihara (1985), while Kushi (1985) provides a basic introduction to the principles plus practical information on recipes and food preparation.
For a comprehensive overview of historical, moral, ecological, nutritional and practical dimensions of vegetarianism see the 24 contributed papers in Johnston, P.K. (ed.) (1994) Second International Congress on Vegetarian Nutrition, Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 59(suppl).
Mowbray (1992) is a thought-provoking and entertaining guide to the topic of food reform through the ages.
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Fieldhouse, P. (1995). Morals, ethics, cultism and quackery. In: Food and Nutrition. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3256-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3256-3_7
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