ABSTRACT
Dietary practices and the qualities of food are not just matters of nutrition. As previous selections have shown, major changes in food production and use have been linked historically to socioeconomic transformations. This selection uses a cross-cultural database to follow the spread of drug foods such as tobacco, alcohol, opium, and coffee in economic systems in transition (see also Jankowiak and Bradburd 2004; Mintz 1985). The argument is that drug foods may be used to enhance the productivity of workers or to induce people to provide more trade goods or new forms of labor than they otherwise would. The latter is more important during the early stages of contact, the former when production systems change in ways that require different kinds of work performance. The results of the study show that drug foods have been used in the expansion of nation-states throughout the world.
