Jeremy M. MacClancy is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Anthropology Department, Oxford Brookes University. He is the author of Consuming Culture, and prize-winning investigator of Basque cuisine.

• List of FiguresList of TablesPrefaceList of ContributorsIntroduction: Considering the Inedible, Consuming the IneffableJeremy MacClancy, Helen Macbeth and Jeya HenryChapter 1. Evidence for the Consumption of the Inedible: Who, What, When, Where and Why?Sera L.YoungChapter 2. Consuming the Inedible: Pica BehaviourCarmen StrungaruChapter 3. The Concepts of Food and Non-food: Perspectives from SpainIsabel González TurmoChapter 4. Food Definitions and Boundaries: Eating Constraints and Human IdentitiesEllen MesserChapter 5. A Vile Habit? The Potential Biological Consequences of Geophagia, with Special Attention to IronSera L. YoungChapter 6. The Discovery of Human Zinc Deficiency: A Reflective Journey Back in TimeAnanda S. PrasadChapter 7. Geophagia and Human NutritionPeter Hooda and Jeya HenryChapter 8. Consumption of Materials with Low Nutritional Value and Bioactive Properties: Non-human Primates vs HumansSabrina KriefChapter 9. Lime as the Key Element: A "Non-food" in Food for SubsistenceRicardo Ávila, Martín Tena and Peter HubbardChapter 10. Salt as a "Non-food": To What Extent Do Gustatory Perceptions Determine Non-food vs Food Choices?Claude Marcel HladikChapter 11. Non-food Food During Famine: The Athens Famine Survivor ProjectAntonia-Leda Matalas and Louis E. GrivettiChapter 12. Eating Garbage: Socially Marginal Food Provisioning PracticesRachel BlackChapter 13. Eating Cat in the North of Spain in the Early Twentieth CenturyF. Xavier MedinaChapter 14. Insects: Forgotten and Rediscovered as Food. Entomophagy among the Eipo, Highlands of West New Guinea, and in Other Traditional SocietiesWulf Schiefenhövel and Paul BlumChapter 15. Eating Snot: Socially Unacceptable but Common. Why?María Jesús PortalatínChapter 16. Cannibalism: No Myth, but Why So Rare?Helen Macbeth, Wulf Schiefenhövel and Paul CollinsonChapter 17. From Edible to Inedible: Social Construction, Family Socialisation and UpbringingLuis CantareroChapter 18. The Use of Waste Products in the Fermentation of Alcoholic BeveragesRodolfo Fernández and Daria DeragaAfterword: Earthy Realism: Geophagia in Literature and ArtJeremy MacClancyIndex

"...contains fascinating material on the social, political, nutritional, and evolutionary aspects of human food choice. Scholars and students in food studies will find Consuming the Inedible useful for its variety of approaches to 'unusual' eating practices, and several of the chapters should also find their way onto reading lists for courses in the anthropology of food."  ·  JRAI