376. Unraveling the Cultural Significance of Food and Diet feat. Steven Shapin

Jan 22, 2024

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Today’s episode is a historical feast, unraveling the entwined roots of food, philosophy, and the essence of self. But it isn't just for the history buff; it's a banquet for anyone curious about the rich tapestry that flavors our modern approach to nutrition and identity.

Steven Shapin is Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at Harvard University and also the author of several books. His upcoming book is titled Eating and Being, A History of Ideas About What We Eat and Who We Are.

Steven and Greg discuss dietetics far beyond mere sustenance, uncovering how health and moral virtue were historically seen as two sides of the same coin. They delve into the complex relationship between age-old folk wisdom and medical authority, and discover how our ancestors' understanding of well-being still simmers beneath the surface of today's nutritional discourse.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

On exploring the relationship between food, identity, and modernity

06:06: The book could be considered as a kind of gloss on the expression "you are what you eat" because at the end of the day, what I'm interested in is what's the relationship between what we think of the stuff that we put in our mouths and who we are. And that, so it's a story about some quite recent changes in answering that sort of question. So it's a story about how we became modern, and are we indeed modern?

Balancing nutritional expertise and common sense in food choices

31:43: You could tell a story about the way in which nutritional expertise trumps common-sense sensory experience. But that, as it were, aura of expertise doesn't illuminate all of our lives. And there is pushback to that, and it's from people who said we've had enough of this scientific inspection of what's on our plate.

You cannot got from the scientific to the moral

11:33: You cannot get from an is to an ought. In other words, you cannot get from the scientific to the moral. But it's precisely the occupation in dietetics, in what counts as the scientific medicine of past centuries, that's placed the is and the ought in the same field. So that what was good for you would guarantee health and a long life also constituted virtue. Moderation is a virtue. It's one of the seven cardinal virtues. I found it tremendously interesting, so I found myself telling a story about, in a way, how we think about food and ourselves, which is also a story about the modern moment.

The multi-faceted considerations of healthy eating

33:39: When you're eating, you have a mind of what's good for your body, insofar as you know what's good for your body. You might know it through past experience. You might know it from the Nutrition Facts label. You might know it from medical expertise. But you also have in mind what is good for conviviality: a nice meal with friends, have a drink—you don't have to get drunk, but have a drink every now and then—what's good for the environment, what's good for the agricultural laborers that produce your food, and what's good for the people who produce your package and transport your food. All of these belong in this pushback to the nutritionally modulated desire to consume only what's good for your body and live forever.

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