"You are what you eat" has now become the opening line for most anthropological studies of food. Undoubtedly, food is crucial to human survival and development. As one of the most fundamental human activities, eating embodies both biological attributes and cultural characteristics, encompassing all aspects of human social life. Dietary practices are a complex outcome of the interplay between human nutritional needs, culinary preferences, ecological environments, behavioral logic, cultural practices, interspecies relationships, and the contingencies and inevitabilities of history.

Through food, people define themselves, creating aesthetics, values, and meanings. At the same time, choices in food serve to unite or divide groups, thereby sparking political and economic dynamics that alter the world in unforeseen and unimaginable ways. Are food and dietary practices biologically determined or culturally constructed? Which comes first? Or are they intertwined and progressing together? Is food merely for sustenance, or does it nourish thought as well? Who discovered and transformed the foods that humans rely on for survival? Who created the rich and diverse cuisines of the world? And what determines our food systems? How far are we from hunger and obesity, food safety, and justice?

A series of questions about food points directly to the human condition and the essence of existence, covering nearly all areas of anthropological inquiry, including religion, symbolism, materiality, desire, emotion, class, gender, ethnicity, identity, the body, history, migration, conflict, evolution, change, ecology, and environment. This issue's essays touch on topics such as food and human relationships, the transnational circulation of flavors, fermentation, material culture, and museum representations. While illustrating the interconnected history of humanity and all living things, they also reveal the myriad facets of life and the human experience through the everyday act of eating.

Humans have a long history of discovering and exploring food, a process that has accompanied the entire course of societal development. As early as 13,000 years ago, humans began domesticating and cultivating wild rice. By 5000 BCE, rice was already widely grown in the Yangtze River basin. Today, rice sustains more than half of the world’s population. Around 7000 BCE, maize cultivation had begun in central Mexico, and maize is now the most widely grown crop globally. The extensive cultivation of rice and maize marked the onset of large-scale domesticated crop farming, heralding the advent of agricultural societies and the beginning of human civilization.

However, an increasing number of studies are challenging this linear narrative. Jared Diamond famously referred to the invention of agriculture as “the worst mistake in the history of the human race,” arguing that it subjected humans to incessant labor and physical exhaustion. A diet dominated by grains led to malnutrition due to a lack of diverse minerals and vitamins, while the concentration of populations and proximity to livestock in agricultural societies facilitated the spread of diseases【3】.

Marshall Sahlins reinterpreted the “affluent” conditions of early Stone Age societies, emphasizing their practices of food collection, sharing, labor distribution, and material exchange. He redefined wealth and poverty based on production aimed at meeting survival needs【4】. In this light, the emergence of agricultural societies was not necessarily an inevitable path in history.

James C. Scott highlighted a multilinear narrative of human development, suggesting that whether a group chose pastoralism, farming, or hunting and fishing was more dependent on the food resources and ecological environment of their habitat. The seasonal nature of grain cultivation tied farmers to fixed temporal and spatial routines. Moreover, grains’ measurability, storability, transportability, and ease of redistribution made them highly favorable for state control and taxation. In other words, it was not agriculture that created states, but rather states that favored agriculture【5】.

In 1888, Garrick Mallory’s essay Ceremonial and Dinner Customs in The American Anthropologist shifted anthropological studies of food towards social and cultural dimensions【6】. From raw meat consumption to table manners and the progress of civilization【7】, food came to be seen as more than a mere survival necessity. The distinction between edible and inedible reflected symbolic orders of purity and danger【8】, as well as the ecological environment and food accessibility. The transformation of food from raw to cooked resulted from both evolutionary chance—such as the discovery of fire and the invention of cooking—and mental structures and classification systems embodied in the “culinary triangle”【9】.

At the same time, a focus on food has provided anthropology with a wealth of ethnographic narratives, revealing the diversity of culinary cultures and various theoretical approaches. For example, we now understand that the Jewish and Islamic taboo against eating pork is not only about notions of classification and order but also relates to the natural environment and the nomadic economy of the Middle East. Raising pigs is unsuitable in such regions, whereas ruminants are better adapted. This also allows us to infer the ecological and cultural connections in pig-eating regions, such as areas with rice agriculture and dense populations.

Similarly, the Hindu reverence for the "sacred cow" reflects ecological rationality. Cows do not compete with humans for food, and their milk, labor, and dung (used as fuel) are more valuable than the meat obtained by slaughtering them. The Buddhist principle of "non-killing" is also linked to population growth and limited natural resources【10】.

Food as a Bond: Shared Meals and Social Connection

As the saying goes, “birds of a feather flock together,” and food often plays a central role as a medium of creation and connection among people. Food first manifests through bodily perception and memory. For instance, the often-mentioned “taste of home” evokes emotions and intimacy, rooted in the shared food experiences of family life. This bond is especially strong in the caregiving and nurturing relationships developed while raising children and becomes even more significant when offspring leave their original family units.

Of course, family commensality and coexistence represent the most basic form of human social living. Shared meals reflect various types of social relationships, including emotional ties, reciprocal exchanges, and social responsibilities. In early societies, the sharing and celebration of large game after a successful hunt were vital rituals and reciprocal networks that ensured the survival and continuity of the tribe during times of scarcity.

From Sacrificial Meals to Religious Rituals

In fact, early human activities involving shared meals were closely tied to religious rituals. The communal sharing of sacrificial food symbolized communication between the divine and the human, embedding a symbolic order within this practice. Over a century ago, Robertson Smith explored this connection in Religion of the Semites, discussing ancient sacrificial rituals and communal meals【12】. Worshippers established a bond with deities through shared sacrificial food or gained a mysterious connection or power by consuming a totem animal.

In contrast, Émile Durkheim emphasized that the origin of this mystical connection lay in the social meaning attributed to the sacred dining ritual itself, rather than in the presence of the divine【13】.

Today, the culinary aspects of sacrificial rituals persist in various cultures around the world.

Community, Exclusion, and Cultural Boundaries

In sacrificial practices, communal dining reinforces the internal cohesion of a community, but it also excludes other groups due to religious and cultural differences. Indeed, the construction of ethnic boundaries often stems from identification and differentiation within rituals and daily life, where food serves as a significant cultural representation. Through the sensory experiences of taste, smell, and touch, people express their identities, empathize with their communities, and connect with the world around them.

Understanding how specific groups embed their collective identity in their perceptions and memories of food is essential. This highlights what Deborah Lupton emphasized as the “profound connection between food, emotions, and subjectivity”【15】.

Food not only reflects social relationships and identifies ethnic identities but also mirrors social class. Specific social classes or cultural groups share a set of perceptions, ideas, and corresponding ways of thinking and behaving regarding food, shaped by their unique historical processes. Jack Goody, through a comparative study of the development of "haute cuisine" in regions such as India, China, the Arab world, and Europe, pointed out that in complex hierarchical societies, the upper classes, wielding power and wealth, sought rare ingredients and refined cooking to align with their status and identity. In other words, the socioeconomic structure gave rise to "haute cuisine," which gradually assumed a standardized form【17】.

The relationship between food and social class is also evident in dining companions and how these relationships evolve. In India, the caste system enforces strong principles of hierarchy and purity in daily life. People of different castes typically avoid physical contact and do not dine together. However, if two castes are joined by marriage, sharing food at a wedding feast is permitted, a practice that paradoxically reinforces the hierarchical rules of everyday life【18】.

In France, differences between the working class and the bourgeoisie are also reflected in their dining habits and etiquette. The working class emphasizes abundant food, lively drinking, and uninhibited celebration, while the bourgeoisie values formal dining with an air of anticipation, restraint, and politeness. These distinctions extend to dining environments, serving order, and tableware use. In other words, food preferences and the concept of distinction are closely linked, shaped by differing habits, capital, and social fields. These distinctions are influenced by family upbringing, education, and accumulated experiences, ultimately forming specific social ethics and aesthetics through daily practices【19】.

Food in the Age of Globalization

With the advent of the Age of Exploration, the movement of people and goods increased globally. Food, no longer merely a means of survival, began connecting different parts of the world in diverse ways, altering local dietary practices, living conditions, and even historical trajectories.

Sidney Mintz shifted the anthropological lens from "primitive societies" to the global expansion of capitalism and colonialism. Using the production and consumption of sugar as a focal point, he linked the plantation economies of Caribbean colonies with societal changes in Britain. The transformation of sugar from a luxury good to a modern industrial commodity illustrated how people, materials, and behaviors became interconnected within broader and more profound political-economic processes, generating and transforming meaning along the way.

As the industrialization of food and global supply chains took shape, food production was no longer confined to local worlds. Land, labor, transportation, markets, and sales related to food were drawn into a core-periphery political-economic system, intensifying the relationship between food and politics.

In 1950, Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán attempted to reclaim land seized by the U.S.-owned United Fruit Company and redistribute it to the people. To maintain access to cheap fruit, the company painted Arbenz as a communist, prompting the U.S. government to orchestrate a coup that ousted him, plunging Guatemala into civil war and economic collapse.

Moreover, the industrialization of food production and "unrestricted capitalism" accelerated the transition of indigenous populations from self-sufficiency to dependence, creating asymmetric power dynamics. After the 1994 enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), industrialized corn from the U.S. and Canada flooded Mexico, resulting in over a million farmers losing their livelihoods within a decade. This sparked protests demanding that Monsanto leave Latin America.

The Impact of Food Globalization

Food globalization has also created new dietary and lifestyle patterns. In this fluid landscape, the boundaries between global and local have blurred. Goody discussed the impact of food industrialization on global dining through aspects such as canned, refrigerated, dehydrated, and imitation foods【20】.

On one hand, advancements in food storage and transportation technology have made foods from various regions accessible worldwide. For instance, cold chain logistics can deliver fresh bluefin tuna—considered a premium ingredient in Japanese sashimi—from Canada to Japan within 15 hours. On the other hand, fast food and pre-packaged meals distributed via global food logistics networks have reduced cooking and dining times, increasingly individualizing everyday eating habits and diminishing their social aspects. The standardization of food (e.g., toast, condensed milk, ketchup, and various canned goods) is gradually eroding the rich cultural significance of cuisine.

James Watson and his research team’s study on the globalization and localization of McDonald’s illustrates how this quintessential symbol of "Western imagination or stereotype" has adapted its strategies to fit the cultural and market environments of Taipei, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul. By creating localized products such as curry rice and spicy chicken wings, McDonald’s has successfully integrated into these diverse cultural contexts【21】.

At the same time, certain foods have been moving in reverse directions. For example, the popularity of conveyor-belt sushi in North America blends imagined Japanese aesthetics with convenience and affordability, replacing the traditional associations of sushi with refinement and expense. Its ingredients, owners, and employees often hail from various parts of the world, showcasing the internationalization of sushi. Similarly, the globalization of pizza has transformed it from a flatbread with tomatoes, cheese, and garlic typical of Naples into a dish offering a myriad of inventive flavors.

Thai cuisine, another example of ethnic food's global journey, provides a dual narrative. Thai immigrants use their cuisine to evoke nostalgia and a sense of home, while Western consumers prepare or enjoy Thai dishes to experience an exotic "other" culture. This dynamic often carries undertones of cultural colonialism, where the center enjoys the global availability of diverse food and cultural resources.

Industrialization and Ethical Dilemmas in Food

The industrialization of food has led to a rise in fast-food consumption, reflecting the pace of modern life. On one hand, individuals are liberated from home cooking, gaining more time for other activities. On the other hand, society’s accelerated rhythm pulls people into a new cycle of alienation, where daily meals are reduced to the functional need to "fill the stomach." Instant noodles, which are inexpensive, "delicious," diverse, and immensely marketable, epitomize this trend. Coexisting with this is a counter-movement that emphasizes ethical eating—encompassing vegetarianism, organic foods, fair trade, and the slow food movement. These two opposing trends highlight a paradoxical relationship of distinction and entanglement.

Quantitative production and management in industrialized food systems often lead to over-reliance on pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture and ethical risks in the intensive farming of livestock. While organic foods seek to address these issues, they bring new challenges, such as middle-class consumerization and the association of slow living with wealth and leisure. This raises questions about who produces and who consumes, sparking a new wave of food politics【24】. Against this backdrop, the dynamics of fast versus slow, good versus bad in food consumption reveal complex interactions of class, gender, and market forces.

In the United States, milk consumption has become so normalized that it obscures the biological diversity of lactose digestion and the complex interplay between politics, economics, and milk consumption. The close ties between the government and the dairy industry have fueled campaigns promoting milk as universally healthy, disregarding variations in individual nutritional absorption—a trend now emerging in China as well.

Food, Body Image, and Disordered Eating

Consumption patterns can also lead to eating disorders. The beauty standards propagated by American mass media, often idealized by young people, promote a single "perfect" body image, ignoring the natural diversity of human bodies. This creates constant anxiety over whether, what, and how much to eat. Conditions such as anorexia nervosa and extreme dietary control have transcended racial, gender, and class boundaries, spreading globally in obsessive forms.

Obesity: A Multidisciplinary Issue in Food Anthropology

Obesity is a prominent topic in contemporary food anthropology, integrating insights from biology, nutrition, genetics, and environmental science. It prompts exploration of how factors such as overnutrition, undernutrition, food safety, and healthy eating relate to livelihood economies, food cultures, consumerism, co-evolution, industrialization, and genetically modified foods.

Why do humans become obese? Or, put differently, why do humans enjoy sweets and fried foods? Biological anthropologists link this to human evolution: ten thousand years ago, when food scarcity was common, our ancestors developed mechanisms to store sugar and fat in their bodies for future use. Over time, this created a “bio-habitus” of food preferences.

Since the Industrial Revolution, food production and supply have undergone significant changes. While food has become increasingly abundant, physical labor has declined. However, the genetic predisposition to favor high-sugar and high-calorie foods has not adapted to this rapid shift in the food environment over the past century, contributing to the prevalence of obesity.

Industrialized foods have simultaneously lowered production costs and created many high-calorie, low-nutrition "junk foods," causing nearly a quarter of the global population to suffer from chronic diseases such as diabetes, linked to overnutrition. Alarmingly, obesity resulting from dietary preferences is increasingly affecting younger age groups.

Hunger: The Twin of Obesity

Hunger, like obesity, persists in today’s world. Nearly one billion people globally still struggle to secure basic sustenance. Poverty is a clear cause of hunger, intertwined with colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, and racism. During the colonial era, landowners displaced indigenous peoples from traditional subsistence practices, turning them into laborers cultivating cash crops such as coffee, rubber, spices, and sugarcane—commodities at the bottom of the global food production system. These workers often had to re-enter the market to purchase basic necessities.

Once food or crops become commodities, structural violence in food distribution emerges. Global hunger and overconsumption are less about inadequate supply and more about unequal distribution. Ironically, hunger often occurs in agricultural regions where land is used to grow cash crops or livestock feed instead of staple foods. For example, when coffee prices plummeted in the 1990s, coffee-producing countries faced severe economic shocks. In Rwanda, this economic instability exacerbated political crises, leading to the 1994 genocide, which devastated coffee plantations and worsened famine.

Capitalism and the Global Food System

Capitalism, as the driving force of the global food system, often prioritizes corporate profit maximization over local sustainability, food justice, and environmental equity. This reveals the irrationality underlying supposedly rational economic systems. The corporate-dominated global food economy has widened the gap between farms and tables. The industrialized food system's energy demands and market monopolization have displaced farmers from their lands, leading to reduced crop diversity, weakened global food supply chains, and unsustainable agricultural practices. Achieving global food justice is the crux of these challenges.

Anthropocene and Reflections on Food Practices

With the advent of the Anthropocene—a term synonymous with the "Capitalocene"—human-centered approaches to food systems are being scrutinized. Human dietary choices directly impact other species and their interactions with humanity. For instance, the large-scale farming of salmon highlights human-fish interdependence, involving fisheries, marine transportation, data management, and ecological restoration—a mutual "domestication" of humans and nature.

Similarly, the global trade in "wild" matsutake mushrooms benefits both the mushrooms and the forests they inhabit, exemplifying symbiotic relationships amid capitalist ruins. Handcrafted cheese production, rooted in terroir, sensory experience, and emotional economies, contrasts starkly with the standardized production and profit-driven nature of industrialized cheese, raising broader issues of "microbial politics."

Sustainability and the Future of Food Systems

Accelerated global food economies have drastically shortened the time from harvesting to consumption, sometimes to the detriment of food supply chains. For example, the rising price of bluefin tuna stems not solely from its taste but also from its scarcity. Similarly, industrially farmed livestock—treated as "walking meat"—are intensively reared and rapidly fattened, often at the cost of their basic rights to survival.

Market-driven agriculture has also led to the monoculture of high-yield crops like Cavendish bananas, which now account for 99% of global banana exports. However, this reliance on a single variety has heightened susceptibility to diseases like Fusarium wilt, a risk mirrored in crops like citrus, coffee, and potatoes. While hybrid rice has alleviated hunger for many, the selective breeding of crops raises concerns about biodiversity loss. Moreover, the extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers in large-scale farming has severely degraded soil health.

Rediscovering Harmony with Nature

To ensure the planet's sustainability, humanity must return to diverse ecological and cultural traditions, learning to coexist with all living beings and establishing a sustainable global food system. Actions could include adopting traditional fishing techniques that preserve juvenile fish, reducing unnecessary food transportation to maintain localism, and protecting farmland and farmers in urbanizing regions. Sharing local ecological knowledge about food and rebuilding connections between soil, plants, and humans can help sustain cultural food practices and biodiversity.

Revitalizing ancient crop systems, such as the interdependence of maize, beans, and squash, could reveal the inherent power and wisdom of nature. Promoting fair trade and high-quality coffee production could connect farmers directly with consumers, ensuring fair compensation and improving living standards while delivering the finest food to a broader audience.

Food and Humanity: A Reciprocal Relationship

As times, circumstances, and dietary habits change, human appetites profoundly impact ecosystems, agricultural landscapes, and the lives of food producers and consumers. Can a balance be struck between time, value, and demand, between quality and quantity? Can traditional wisdom, like ancient fermentation and cultivation practices, complement modern technologies such as biotechnology and market economics?

Tibetan nomad Lanze, while documenting his homeland, reflected on the significance of yak dung in highland pastures, lamenting:

"A day without yak dung is a day of losing ourselves, a day that brings disaster to our lives, a day when we become enemies of nature. On that day, our compassion, karmic beliefs, and goodness will drift away."

Similarly, a Mexican proverb states, "The day maize disappears is the day humanity begins to vanish." These sentiments remind us that humanity’s understanding of its relationship with nature is neither immediate nor complete. Despite the changing world, we must continue to learn to collaborate with nature, cherish its gifts, and pursue the optimal state of food and life.

Food originates from nature, and diet reflects life. If we fail to appreciate nature's bounty, we risk losing everything.