ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the origins of choice as a concept informing food and health policy to early developments in the medical sciences in the late fifteenth century. In particular, an a priori severing of the thinking subject from the material body has delimited theorization of the act of eating to two narrow formulations: as either a product of rational choice or a gut-level conditioned response. The impoverished understandings of local context upon which such programmes are based ignore both the socio-economic realities that constrain access to choice as well as the rich bio-cultural diversity that has traditionally characterized foodways in much of the developing world and are ultimately undermined by globalized programmes founded on reductionist thinking originating in a different place and time. Interestingly, parallel developments in human biology notably in neurology and epigenetics are also challenging the established dualistic paradigm, suggesting new possibilities for interdisciplinary engagement.
