Food is not only mere sustenance for humans; it provides clear evidence of their evolutionary and cultural development. Food can provide insights into the merging of societies, as well as their isolation. The evolution of diet also highlights historical links. As a consequence, food has great significance within the field of anthropology.
Through studying the nutrition of different people hundreds of years ago, anthropologists can observe how the human diet has evolved. This can then be linked to historical and cultural events and shifts. For example, during the Victorian era, the working class population typically had a diet concentrated on carbohydrates, such as bread and porridge. By contrast, wealthy families were able to afford items such as meat and sugar. Hence the food that a person ate during the Victorian period was closely related to economic inequality. Food that went off quicker was typically consumed by wealthier households and sugar, which was then relatively expensive.
Food can also be an output of cultural identity. Within families, recipes can be passed on from generation to generation, providing an intimate glimpse into one's cultural heritage. Hawker centres in Singapore are the epitome of this. With, what seems like, millions of recipes on offer, Singapore is world-renowned for its variety of food which is sure to bring you on a journey with its explosive flavours showcasing the cuisines of Malaysia, Indonesia, China, India and many more. In doing so they trace the origins of the immigrants that make up the melting pot of this island nation. Most Chinese in Singapore originate from the coast of China, from where their ancestors sailed in the hope of a better life in the tropics, notably the province of Fujian, but also Guangdong and Hainan, the home of Singapore’s renowned chicken rice.
Delving far back into the origins of human history, recent advances in technology, which look at items such as compositions of isotopes, discarded animal bones in settlements, dental wear and the presence of starch-adapted oral bacteria, can identify not only the diet of our ancestors a thousand generations ago, but even the food that was eaten by our hominid relations, such as the Neanderthals. As a result, in recent years, it has become possible to provide dates for previously unascertainable items such as the first use of fire for cooking, now understood to be at least 800,000 years ago by Neanderthals and now also understood to be vital in their shift away from a purely meat-based diet to include plants at around the same time. Later on, through similar techniques, there is now clear archaeological evidence for the timing start of agriculture around 10,000 years ago, which provided the foundation for the start of modern civilization.
Looking to the future, this form of anthropology can tell us a great deal about how we can be sustainable in the future when it concerns our diet. Using the data from our ancestors, we can say that eating red meat and dairy daily is not sustainable for long periods, and therefore we should all aim to eat these in moderation.
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