Religion and Dietary Practices

Origins

World religions, foods practices and restrictions, and rationale for behavior

Type of religion Practice or restriction Rationale Buddhism •Refrain from meat, vegetarian diet is desirable •Moderation in all foods •Fasting required of monks •Natural foods of the earth are considered most pure •Monks avoid all solid food after noon Eastern…

Regulatory Agencies

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, increased levels of terrorist activities and a higher incidence  of food-borne illness made regulation and protection of the food supply a worldwide concern. The goal of food regulatory agencies is to ensure that the public food supply is safe from disease caused by infection from human handling or by contamination from…

Regional Diet, American

It is quite clear that nutritional intake is associated with common health conditions such as obesity, hypertension  (high blood pressure), cancer, diabetes (high blood sugar), and cardiovascular disease. People in the United States make daily decisions related to grocery purchases, meal choices, food preparation, and other factors influencing their consumption of food and nutrients, and, thus, likely…

Quackery

Quackery is a type of health fraud that promotes products and services that have questionable and unproven scientific bases. Quackery is short for quack-salver, which is derived from two Middle Dutch terms that mean “healing with unguents.” However, quacken means “to boast,” so a kwakzalver might be a healer who boasts about his power or products.

Garlic is frequently touted…

Protein

Protein are compounds composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which are arranged as strands of amino acid. They play an essential role in the cellular maintenance, growth, and functioning of the human body. Serving as the basic structural molecule of all the tissues in the body, protein makes up nearly 17% of the total body weight. To understand

Protein

Preschoolers and Toddlers, Diet of

At approximately age one, children enter the latent period of growth. During this period, until the onset of puberty, growth and development are more gradual than during the first year. Physical growth steadies, and the body begins to look more proportioned as it prepares for an “upright” lifestyle.

The immediate stages following infancy are toddlerhood (ages…

Premenstrual Syndrome

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is characterized by emotional and physical symptoms that can be troubling and cause moderate discomfort for women the week or two before the onset of their menstrual cycle. PMS is estimated to affect up to 40 percent of reproductive-aged women. Approximately 5 to 10 percent of these women experience symptoms so severe that it totally impairs…

Pregnancy

Nutrition during the preconception period, as well as throughout a pregnancy, has a major impact on pregnancy outcome. Among prepregnancy considerations, the prepregnancy Body Mass Index (BMI), folic acid status, and socioeconomic status are the most important.

Prepregnancy BMI is an important factor in predicting pregnancy outcome, since both low prepregnancy and high prepregnancy BMI are associated with an increased…

Popular Culture, Food and

Food is very much a part of popular culture, and the beliefs, practices, and trends in a culture affect its eating practices. Popular culture includes the ideas and objects generated by a society, including commercial, political, media, and other systems, as well as the impact of these ideas and objects on society. Current Trends

There has been an…

Pacific Islanders, Diet of

The Pacific Ocean—the world’s largest ocean—extends about 20,000 kilometers from Singapore to Panama. There are 789 habitable islands within the “Pacific Islands,” a geographic area in the western Pacific comprising Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Polynesia includes 287 islands and is triangular, with Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island at the apexes. Other major Polynesian islands include…

Pacific Islander Americans, Diet of

The Pacific Islands contain 789 habitable islands and are divided into the three geographic areas: Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are over a million Pacific Islanders in the United States, most of whom live in California, Hawaii, Washington, Utah, and Texas. Pacific Islander ethnicities in the United States include…