Cultures all around the world have different views on what is allowed and not allowed when it comes to the consumption of food. Different cultures believe that specific foods will enhance their ability to see while others believe that eating meat is completely unjust and a sin. One of the major food taboos is related to the consumption of meat because it is acquired as a consequence of hunting a living creature. Now, what do often cause food taboos? In many cultures, food taboos are consequences of our political situation, religious beliefs, and agricultural position.
The diet of many people is often based on the situation of your country. The situation of your country will determine what you import, export, along with what you can afford to consume and can potentially lead to a taboo. Taboo starts as if all of society views one thing as, in a sense, forbidden, they will all as one view it as something wrong to consume and as a society, shun you if you decide to consume it (Soysal, O, 2006). In many war-torn, impoverished regions of Africa like Liberia, not eating the flesh of your dead enemies is taboo as they believe that it provides them with additional strength and power. (Thomas, B., Madison, P., Xygalatas, D., & Luhrmann, T, 2017). possible explanation for this occurs is because in battle, many resources such as food are used. If your army runs out of food, you will die. By eating the flesh of your enemies, you will be safe thanks to the food you brought with you being conserved. In addition to economic situations, political situations can create taboos as certain countries may have negative relationships with each other which ultimately leads them to dislike each other. This disliking could cause the citizens of the two countries to create taboos related to immigrants who enter their country from the opposing one. Back in 1200 BC, the Hittites had a culture that differed from those around them and it caused them to dislike foreigners who brought that culture with them and failed to adopt their culture. As a society, the Hittites would look down upon those who did not adopt their beliefs and as a result created a foreigner taboo (Soysal, O, 2006). Taboos can be created by both political and economic situations of a culture.
Religion can also create some food related taboos as religion dictates what you should do, eat and how you should act. In many religions, eating meat is wrong as they believe that a certain animal is dirty or that an animal is God’s gift to man. Another taboo regarding food is alcohol as it takes a long time to procure and also causes individuals who consume it to be extremely lethargic and irresponsible. Sikhism states that it is wrong for humans to consume anything that would corrupt or pollute the mind (Sen, C. T. ,2004). An example of this is alcohol as in Sikh communities’ alcoholics are viewed as shameless people who lack control. An explanation for this thinking could be the history of Sikhism. Many of the Sikh Gurus were involved in wars and having drunk soldiers would severely handicap the performance of their soldiers, by banishing the consumption of alcohol, their armies would always be on their feet and not distracted by the effects of alcohol. Aside from religion, cultures present in many tribes such as the tribe in Papa New Guinea require you to eat the dead as they believe that it will give you the knowledge of the dead and if you do not do so, it is considered a taboo (Liberski, P, 2013). This belief may have started because the tribesman had to constantly travel from place to place which often left them foodless. As a result, they decided to start eating the dead to see if they can think have the same knowledge as the dead in an attempt to find answers. Alcohol and meat are just two of many foods that have a taboo hovering around it but the consumption of both of them have been limited by religion.
One of the biggest influencers of what we consider taboo eat and how we eat is what we can grow. Ancient Egypt is a great case to prove that food taboos can be caused by agriculture. In ancient Egypt, there was a long period of time where crop growth was minimal; consequently, many Egyptians turned to human flesh as a source of food. This changed when Osiris, the God of agriculture, blessed the Egyptians with great crop growth and outlawed the act of eating human flesh (Thomas, B., Madison, P., Xygalatas, D., & Luhrmann, T, 2017). After Osiris outlawed cannibalism, Egyptians considered cannibalism a taboo as by participating in it will mean that you are going against the word of a God. Aside from crop shortages, food taboos can start as a result of an animal or crop having more value left as is rather than being consumed. For example, Hindu’s refrain from consuming cows because they believe that it was a gift from God. This line of thinking may have started as a result of people who followed Hinduism realizing that farmers with cows lasted longer than the ones without cows as the cows were a source of food and also helped them recover faster than farmers without cows (J.Gilmour,2018). As a result, all farmers kept their cows and later on made it a part of Hinduism as they believe that it was a gift from God thanks to the abilities of the animal. Food taboos are not exclusive to religion and the situation of one’s country but also dependent on agriculture.
Around the world and throughout history, there have been numerous food-related taboos and most of them come down to what you can grow, how your country is doing and religion. If your land is doing poorly, you may be forced to eat others, if your political relations with others is poor, you may be forced to not eat certain foods or if an animal helps you grow crops it may be considered taboo to eat them but do keep in mind that these taboos often vary from place to place.