Remembering and forgetting: Reflections on Alzheimer's Disease

With my grandaunt Tarcila Lasco

by Gideon Lasco, MD

To grow old, many people think nowadays, is to become forgetful. We speak of "senior moments" as lapses of memory, and we are all too familiar with old people being ulyanin and having Alzheimer's disease. According to one study, almost 40 per cent of people over the age of 65 experience some form of memory loss.

Doctors make a distinction among various types of dementia, which may be confusing in real life as they often overlap. These include vascular dementia, the loss of memory and cognition that comes after a stroke. More commonly, there’s Alzheimer's Disease, a progressive degeneration of brain cells that runs its course through several years. Moreover, dementia is not to be confused with “age-associated memory impairment”, which is part of the normal aging process.

But in many cultures, to grow old is also to be full of experiences and memories. Among the Badjao, Italian anthropologist Bruno Bottignolo writes that the people have no concept of chronological age, and do not even know how old their children are. For the Badjao “what counts are the significant moments.” Similarly, when I traveled around the country to interview indigenous healers, who were mostly old men and women, some of them don’t know their real age, and would instead relate the chronology of their lives with events like World War II, the Martial Law, or which president was in office. As repositories of collective memories, old men and women were valued for their counsel and sought for their opinions.

We can still see traces of this in our own culture. The Tagalog term for old is luma, but for old persons it is matanda, a cognate of tanda, which means ‘to remember’. Indeed, we could take this to mean that our forebears marked age not by number of years, but by the number of memories.

***

I became mindful of these things when my grandaunt, Lola Tarcila, passed away at the age of 88. For more than a decade, she had suffered from Alzheimer's disease. As a medical student, and then as the only doctor in our family, I had followed the course of her illness, from the time that she began to lose track of our birthdays, to the time that she could no longer recognize herself in the mirror.

She never married throughout her life. Instead, she became a mother to everyone in our family, and supported the education of many of her nephews and nieces. And although she never wed, the sweetheart of her youth was always her refrain, even as all else has faded in her memory. “We would have been together...but I just did not want to elope with him,” she would always repeat, even to strangers, with an air of nostalgia.

The realization that something was wrong with her came to us when she began to misplace items. Keys would disappear, only to be found in the most obscure drawers. Then she began to forget birthdays and anniversaries. Soon, she lost track of the calendar, and every day she would ask whether it will be Sunday tomorrow. Slowly but steadily, her memory began to fade.

Then the day came when she could no longer recognize me, conflating me with my father, brother, or one of my uncles. But in rare moments of lucidity that gave me joy, she would tell others that one of her grandnephews would soon be a doctor. One day, we saw her talking with herself at the mirror, thinking that it was another lady in front of her. But even then, her graciousness never left, politely asking her own image whether she would like to come and have dinner with us.

Visitors came to see her - family and friends - but as the years passed, the visits became fewer and further apart, While everyone she knew kept their high regard for her, perhaps this was inevitable as she could no longer take part in conversations. It was as if the Tarcila they knew no longer existed. Looking back, I realise that the tragedy of Alzheimer’s disease is not just that you forget people, but that people forget about you.

***

On August 2013, Lola Tarcila died peacefully in her sleep, after 15 years of Alzheimer’s. I had only been 12 years old when she started losing her memory. Gone from us is is my dear grandaunt who cooked the best bulalo, prepared the best leche flan. Her industriousness and generosity have been life-changing for many of her loved ones. But, alas, the intervening years have blunted the impact of her loss. How could I forget the voice that lulled me to sleep when the world was yet bright and new? Yet, even as I race to remember those times, I knew that my efforts are bound to fail, for the details have slipped.

Could it be that Alzheimer's disease is a metaphor of the human condition? We go through life as parents and children, brothers and sisters, lovers and friends, and these bonds are initiated and perpetuated by physical connections, of joy and sorrow, of triumph and defeat, of love and hate, of constancy and change, of distance and intimacy. But even as we etch these things in our memories, and convince ourselves that there they will remain forever, they begin to fade at the moment of their inception. And when the time has come to recover them anew, we realize, sometimes in tears, sometimes with indifference, that very little has remained.

To hold on to these memories, and to never let them go: This then is humanity's only resort. It is not in the inevitability of forgetting, but in the struggle of remembering, that we are able to rise above the illness of corruptible memories that afflict all of us, some in dramatic fashion, others in far subtler ways. Just as Lola Tarcila, even in her amnesiac state, never forgot her sweetheart, though several decades have passed, so too will I try to never let go of the elders who have touched my life. To look at them as matanda: full of memories, and to fill ourselves with memories of them: this is what will allow us to cherish them in life and treasure them in death and beyond. Indeed, we should strive to carry them in our hearts until our own capacity for memory and life has gone.

When all remedies have failed, there is still remembrance.

Puerto Princesa
January 31, 2015

Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Baguio City: A treasure-trove of Philippine culture and scholarship

BAGUIO CITY - One of my favorite stops here in the City of Pines is the historic Casa Vallejo in Upper Session Road. Dating to 1909, a year before the establishment of Baguio City itself, it is among the oldest surviving structures in the city, surviving both World War II and the Baguio earthquake of 1990. Just as it has been at some points in its storied life, it is now a boutique hotel, and the venue of other interesting establishments. Aside from the fantastic Hill Station Restaurant, the North Haven Spa, and even a art-flim cinema, it is home to Mt. Cloud Bookshop

“We don’t just sell books, we love them!” one of the posters read. And I must add that the bookshop owners must have a special affection for books of and about Filipinos and the Philippines.

Scholars and aficionados of Philippine history and culture will be delighted to see several works of William Henry Scott, alongside Ileto's Pasyon and Rebolusyon. Those of us who wish to have a deeper understanding of our contemporary socio-economic situation will appreciate the works about labor unions, a chronicle of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and number of reflections about the ramifications of globalization and neoliberal capitalism in the Philippines.

As an anthropologist, I was thrilled to see various ethnographic works, and I got myself two of theme: Kale Fajardo's Filipino Crosscurrents: Oceanographies of Seafaring, Masculinities, and Globalisation and Bruno Bottignolo's Celebrations with the Sun: An Overview of Religious Phenomenon among the Badjaos. There were also narratives of displacement among the Aetas in the wake of Mt. Pinatubo's eruption, among many others. Also interesting were local histories, such as Nita Berthelsen's The Tayabas Chronicles, Reynaldo Ileto's Maguindanao 1860-1888, and Warren's The Sulu Zone 1768-1898. What I planned to be a quick stop turned to be an hour-long bibliographic adventure!

The literature section, on the second floor, is equally impressive, and is arranged according to genre: novels, short stories, poems, plays, nonfiction, among others. Even Filipino comics are on display. For any lover of Philippine culture it is truly a joy to see all those books - from Jose Garcia Villa's poems to the short stories of Butch Dalisay and even Romi Garduce's account of his Seven Summits adventures.

Finally, there are coffee table books about Baguio City, among Filipino art, architecture, weaving, pottery, and many others. Wherever your interests lie, there is surely a gem waiting to be found! Most of the books are priced around 500 pesos, but there are good bargains too, with some short story collections at 100 or even 50 pesos apiece.

Aside from the extensive collection are books about our neighbors in Southeast Asia. There's a book called "The Rice Birds: Folktales from Thailand" and in the same shelf there's "Fishing, Hunting, and Headhunting in the Former Culture of the Ngaju Dayak in Central Kalimantan"! These books are rare, and are unfortunately "exotic" in the reality of our cultural disconnect with our geographic neighbours. So it is another epiphany to see them in that bookshop in Baguio.

***

To a certain extent, bookstores are revelatory of culture, and one only needs to go to National Bookstore or Fully Booked to see how “Westernized” our sensibilities are, with Stephenie Meyer, E. L. James, and Paulo Coelho gracing the entrance while our great writers, such as Nick Joaquin and F. Sionil Jose, are relegated to the peripheries.

Which is why Mt. Cloud Bookshop is refreshing change. Far from marginal, books about the Philippines and by Filipino authors take (their rightful) centre stage. Like a passing cloud that invites introspection, these books make us look within, and can teach us many things about our beautiful culture, our beautiful land.

Baguio City
January 20, 2015

Books about the Philippines take centre stage in Mt. Cloud bookshop in Baguio

Pope Francis’ mass in Luneta and the Filipino fear of rain

by Gideon Lasco, MD

The estimated six million Filipinos who flocked to Luneta today to see Pope Francis and attend his final mass in his Philippine visit will surely make headlines as the largest papal gathering in history. But what makes it more remarkable is that Typhoon 'Amang' notwithstanding, Filipinos still came by the millions. This, despite our tendency, for health reasons, to shy away from the rain.

Since time immemorial, rain has been seen as a cause of illness in the Philippines, and hence avoided, whenever possible. Prof. Michael Tan (2008) writes:

We do have a morbid fear of rain, thinking it causes respiratory ailments. Medically speaking, there is no basis for this belief but even physicians have been known to bring out their thick medical books to cover their heads when it begins to shower. The rainy season does result it more colds, not because of the rains but because people tend to crowd together when they seek shelter from the rain…sometimes still clutching the wet books and newspapers they used to cover their heads.

In the clinics, we doctors see this belief being articulated by mothers, who would often blame their children's colds and coughs because they were "naulanan" (got caught in the rain) or even just "naambunan" (got caught in light rain). Patients of all ages might begin their illness narrative by saying that "it all started when it rained last week..."

Outside the clinics, we see this belief manifesting in the way people respond to rain: the use of umbrellas even when it's just 'ambon' (light rain) or even though it's just a very short distance from the car to the door. It is not unusual for people to cancel or postpone events, or defer their plans for the day, because of the rain.

F. Landa Jocano frames this belief within the "hot and cold syndrome" which is a "binary system of opposition that is one of the most important conceptual frames of reference in understanding the man-nature relationship'" (2003:61). In other words, in Filipino folk medicine, many illnesses are explained in terms of the body's exposure to "hot" and "cold". Rains and winds are considered cold. Given this context, he says that the back (likod)

is especially sensitive to the cold. Thus, an overexposure of this part of the body to rain, cold wind, draft, cold water (as among the fishermen), and other similar elements of nature brings about chest cramps, known as punted, colds (sipon), tuberculosis, asthma; pneumonia, and other physical infirmities (2003: 66-67).

It is not just the back that is vulnerable to the cold elements. The bumbunan or the crown of the head is also seen as prone to the intrusion of lamig or cold. This belief likely draws from the fact that the bumbunan - or anatomically, the bregma, remains soft during infancy as the anterior fontanelle, closing only after 36 months. This explains why some people would shield their head from the rain, never mind the rest of the body.

Of course, not everyone holds these beliefs about rain. Personally, I've always defied by mother's admonitions to always bring an umbrella. And, more broadly, rain itself is not just viewed as a bringer of illness, but also a sign of blessing. Greeted by rain as I was about to climb a mountain in Zambales, an Aeta man told me that rain is heaven's way of welcoming a visitor.

But what does the Papal Mass show us, in light of the long-held beliefs that link rain and illness? Two things come to my mind:

First, our relationship with nature - rain, wind, flood, typhoon - continues to define our experiences as individuals and as a nation. It was a typhoon that brought the Pope to the country, and it was another typhoon that came upon us during his visit. That this new typhoon, Amang, comes this early in the year hints at changing weather patterns that we have to deal with in the years to come.

Second, the Papal Mass shows us that many Filipinos can overcome this fear of rain for the sake of something they deem important. In Philippine media today and in the days to come, discourses will doubtless not miss the fact that the Filipinos came in spite of the rain; and that the Pope, too, braved the rain and the typhoon. There will be personal accounts of pilgrims, including the elderly and children, who have endured several hours of rain but found such an ordeal to be worth it, with the fleeting encounter with the Pope a just reward.

Indeed, there are events and commitments that we simply cannot afford to miss, and we must not allow the rain to stop us. The tardiness, the "Filipino time", that is often blamed on bad weather can be dealt with; despite the rain, life can still go on, especially if the government is prepared. This makes me wonder: would government action, too, avert the inevitable cancellation of classes and work that punctuate every year? This would require much more than yellow raincoats - we need flood-proof roads, and better transport systems, to ensure the safety of everyone. After all, it is entirely understandable for people to be late if there is an actual flood between them and their destinations. And rains and floods pose real health threats, not least of which is leptospirosis.

But if we are to fully be liberated from the tyranny of rain and flood, we have to work for a change of attitude towards rain accompanied by the government's commitment to make it possible - and safe - for people to go about their daily lives without being threatened by the floods and the rains.

In our age of persistent typhoons and worsening floods, and of climate change to which our archipelago is particularly vulnerable, perhaps the Pope has given us another timely lesson: Rain is not something to fear, but something we can overcome.

Manila
January 18, 2015

REFERENCES

Jocano, F. L. (2003). Folk medicine in a Philippine municipality. PUNLAD Research House.

Tan, M. L. (2008). Revisiting usog, pasma, kulam. UP Press. 

Thou shall not eat: An overview of the relationships between food and religion

By Gideon Lasco, MD

BACKGROUND
The anthropology of food and religion can be organized into two major domains: food in religion and religion in food.  In this paper, we focus on the latter: religion in food, or how religions and belief systems have played a role in determining what we eat, who eats what, how we eat.

There are two main approaches in nutritional anthropology, the materialist perspective and the idealist (Harris, 1970). As this paper aims to provide an overview, perspectives from both schools of thought will be included in the discussion.

Considering the divergence of major religions, one way to present “religion in food” would be a comparative survey, that is, to discuss each of the major religions of the world, and discuss the relationship of each to food. However, considering that the orientation of anthropology is to arrive at explanations, I would aver that a more anthropologically-oriented way of presenting this topic is to look into the various relationships of religion in food, looking at religion as causal domain and food as outcome. The different religions can be then be used as illustrations for each of the relationships we identified.

Finally, this paper speculates on the future of food in terms of religion in an increasingly post-religious, secular world.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Given two interacting variables, food and religion, we can construct statements like this to state relationships based on the review of literature:

Religion __________ Food

And come up with some relationships:

1. Religion determines what is food (food preferences) and what isn’t (food taboos)
2. Religion dictates how we should eat and prepare food and where (food practices)
3. Religion sets limits on how much food we should eat in our everyday lives (food rationing)
4. Religion prescribes occasions for eating and avoiding food (feasting and fasting)

These relationships form the outline of our main discussion of religion in food.

RELIGION AS DEFINER OF WHAT IS FOOD AND WHAT ISN’T
Historically, religion has functioned as a definer of what can be eaten, and what cannot, and perhaps this is the major function of religion in food. The English term for the latter is taboo, which itself is derived from the Tahitian language where it means “unclean or cursed”. Other cultures have terms for both what should be eaten, and what should not, and these terms are used in the context of religion; they are essentially religious laws.

In Islam, for instance, the concept of halal and haram is rooted in the Holy Koran (Al-Jallad, 2008), on which the following verse is found:

“Forbidden unto you (for food) are carrion and blood and swine-flesh, and that which hath been dedicated unto any other than Allah, and the strangled, and the dead through beating, and the dead through falling from a height, and that which hath been killed by (the goring of) horns, and the devoured of wild beasts, saving that which ye make lawful (by the death-stroke), and that which hath been immolated unto idols.: (5:2)

This is similar to the kosher rules of Judaism, which likewise forbid the consumption of swine, most insects, and the mixing of milk and meat. These prohibitions can be traced to the commandments of Moses in two of the earliest books of the Bible, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Much of the discussion on Islamic and Jewish rules on food centers on, and is best illustrated the pig taboo, or the ban on what Harris calls ‘the abominable pig’ (Harris, 1970). In the traditional perspective, religion itself is the explanation; there is no need to probe beyond it (i.e. theological explanation) because it is what was ordained from time immemorial.

Mary Douglas, on the other hand, called for a symbolic, interpretive interpretation. She argued that prohibiting certain foods was a way of “carving up the natural world into the pure and the impure”, thereby creating a model for thinking about the purity of the Divine.

Regarding the pig, she said that while most animals are cloven-hoofed and cud-chewing such as the cow, the goat, or the sheep, the pig had cloven hoof but did not chew cud. This classificatory ambiguity is what she calls a "taxonomic anomaly", which she then claims as the basis for the pig taboo based on a symbolic or interpretive perspective (Douglas, 1966).

On the other hand, Marvin Harris argued for a materialist explanation of the pig taboo. He says that the environment of the Middle East makes pig raising highly inefficient. Because pork tastes good to humans, it must be proscribed religiously, otherwise, its husbandry will be maladaptive.

To raise pigs in arid, open environments requires heavy expenditure of water and supplementary food, and are thus expensive to keep and grow.  Moreover, the pigs eat what humans eat. The pig has another disadvantage: unlike sheep, goats, and cattle, it is not a ruminant. These factors make pig growing ecologically unsustainable, which favored the establishment of a religious proscription.

On the other hand, in Christian Europe, there are forests where pigs can thrive; it is a totally different environment. Therefore, you have a different attitude toward them compared with what continues to exist in the Middle East.

Of course, there is a religious explanation to the lifting of the pig taboo in Christianity:  In Peter’s vision in the book of Acts, it was revealed to him that there are no more unclean and clean animals; everything can now be eaten.

Arguments run along the same lines in trying to explain “sacred cow” in India and other Hindu nations like Nepal. At face value, as Heinricher (1981) observes, the situation seems to support an idealist perspective:

The case of India's sacred cattle is often cited by ideationalists as an example of blatant economic wastefulness in the name of spiritual satisfaction. Why else would starving people refuse to eat all of those cattle roaming the cities and clogging the highways, if not because of religious sanctions?5
In the idealist school of thought, it is "ahisma", the doctrine of non-violence towards all life that provides the basis for a religious proscription on cow slaughter and consumption, however contrary it seems against the rational choice. Ahimsa is also essentially the premise of vegetarianism, which is espoused by the two major schools of Buddhist thought. 

On the other hand, Harris and others, once again employing a materialist approach, says that it made ecological sense to have a prohibition of cow slaughter, considering the value of the cow in an agricultural society such as India, considering the amount of dung it produces, which is then used as fertilizer. Moreover, he critiques the acceptance of ‘ahimsa’ as preventing cow slaughter, saying that cow slaughter does happen, either by sins of omission or covert acts.

Moreover, “cow eating” does happen, by untouchables, or even by a growing number of Indians who embrace beef eating . Mencher (1971) writes that many urban middle-classed Hindus would admit to liking beef curry once informed that "upper caste" American like beef.

An interesting conclusion of Harris is found in the last paragraph of his article:

I have yet to encounter a flourishing religion whose food taboos make It more difficult for ordinary people to be well nourished. (79)

In other words, he is saying that at the weakest form of the materialist approach, religion may dictate foodways, but it is constrained by the nutritional needs of the people.

Christianity at large has lifted food taboos, as we explained earlier. However, various Christian sects have food rules and restrictions. The Jehovah’s witnesses, for instance, avoid eating the flesh of animals that have not been properly bled because they believe it is wrong to eat blood. Here, the role of food as “definer of group identity” comes into play. Many studies have demonstrated that food is a particularly potent symbol of personal and group identity, forming one of the foundations of both individuality and a sense of common membership in a larger, bounded group and this can very well apply to religion. (Wilk, 1999, Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993 et al).

As a final illustration of how religion has dictated food, the arrival of Christianity in the Pacific islands is attributed as the reason for the elimination of the practice of cannibalism. With the changing of people’s belief systems, cannibalism, has entered into a taboo (Hadden, 2009).

In sum, we can look at these relationships between religion and food according the materialist explanations about food taboos were enumerated by Meyer Rochow (2009):
-Food taboos for certain members of the society and to highlight special events
-Food taboos to protect human health
-Food taboos during pregnancy and food changes over the course of the menstrual cycle
-Food taboos as an ecological necessity to protect the resource
-Food taboos in order to monopolize a resource
-Food taboos as an expression of empathy
-Food taboos as a factor in group-cohesion and group-identity

On the other hand, we can follow the perspective of Mary Douglas, who called fof a more symbolic / interpretive explanation, looking at food as a function of culture, of which religion comprises a very big part.

RELIGION AND FOOD PRACTICES
Religions provide a “morality of food”, in the sense that it mandates how food is to be eaten and shared. There are religions, for instance, that emphasize sharing of foods, such as Christianity, which has plenty of references and illustrations in the Bible as regards the sharing of food.

Religion likewise provides an explanation of how food comes to us, and provides the means and the object of thanksgiving. Hence, the religious usually say a prayer of thanksgiving before each meal. Jesus Christ, in his famous “The Lord’s Prayer”, says:

Give us this day our daily bread (Matthew 6:-13; Luke 11:2-4 ESV) 

Acknowledging that food is from God makes food a ‘blessing’, a received substance, and thus, thanksgiving must be rendered unto the Giver. Highly symbolic, thus, was the episode in the Book of Exodus, when “manna from heaven” rained down the Israelites, literally food that came from heaven.

Saying ‘grace’ before a meal is not a unique feature of Christianity. In Judaism, the Birkat Hamazon is uttered, a series of blessings that take the form of a prayer after meals. The scriptural source for the requirement to say birkat hamazon is Deuteronomy 8:10 "When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He gave you".

In Islam, the "Bismillah ar-Rahman, ar-Raheem", a common religious expression meaning "In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful" is uttered before a meal. There are also counterparts of saying grace in Hinduism

Finally, even in Japan where religion is not organized, and people are non-religious, people say "Itadakimasu" before a meal, which means "I humbly receive"; the status of food as blessing is still implied.

Another food practice of everyday life, upon which materialist explanations can readily be advanced, is the ritual washing of hands. This is practiced by Judaism, Islam, and many other religions.
Likewise, religions emphasize virtues that favor sharing of food, i.e. compassion, charity, kindness, and goodness. It is considered impious to throw away food; parents tell their children not to waste food, coming as it is from God. Materialists, again, would look at the sharing of food (i.e. compassion, charity kindness) as a very rational function of religion, which is to distribute resources from the rich to the poor, and to provide a social safety net by which starvation can be prevented.

RELIGION AND HOW MUCH FOOD WE SHOULD EAT
Religion does not merely regulate the quality of food (i.e. what is eaten); it also has something to say about the quantity of food (i.e. how much is eaten).
In Christianity, over-indulgence in food is known as gluttony, and many writers have commented about it. St. Gregory the Great, a doctor of the Church, described five ways by which one can commit sin of gluttony, and corresponding biblical examples for each of them (Orby, 1875):

1. Eating before the time of meals in order to satisfy the palate. Biblical example: Jonathan eating a little honey, when his father Saul commanded no food to be taken before the evening. [1Sa 14:29]

2. Seeking delicacies and better quality of food to gratify the "vile sense of taste." Biblical example: When Israelites escaping from Egypt complained, "Who shall give us flesh to eat ? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucumbers and the melons, and the leeks and the onions and the garlic," God rained fowls for them to eat but punished them 500 years later.[Num 11:4]

3. Seeking after sauces and seasonings for the enjoyment of the palate. Biblical example: Two sons of Eli the high priest made the sacrificial meat to be cooked in one manner rather than another. They were met with death.[1Sa 4:11]

4. Exceeding the necessary amount of food. Biblical example: One of the sins of Sodom was "fullness of bread."[Eze 16:49]

5. Taking food with too much eagerness, even when eating the proper amount, and even if the food is not luxurious.Biblical example: Esau selling his birthright for ordinary food of bread and pottage of lentils. His punishment was that the "profane person . . . who, for a morsel of meat sold his birthright," we learn that " he found no place for repentance, though he sought it

To recapitulate, St Gregory the Great said that one may succumb to the sin of gluttony by: 1. Time (when); 2. Quality; 3. Stimulants; 4. Quantity; 5. Eagerness

Most other religions frown on over-indulgence; there are many verses in the Koran condemning gluttony, and eastern religions that emphasize penance and asceticism are doubtless disapproving of behaviors.

In sum, religions set a limit of what is the acceptable amount of eating. Juxtaposing this limit with the virtues of generosity, giving, and kindness, it is easy to see how materialists can explain gluttony as sin: such an injunction favors the distribution of excess food among the people who do not have access to it.

On the other hand, there is also much symbolism in religious passages that make for plausible parallels with food, to the extent that it will also be easy to offer an idealist explanation on how food is regulated in terms of its quantity. As nourisher of our physical bodies, food is metaphor for material pleasures, and the ability to control our diets is seen as a sign of religious discipline.

FEASTING AND FASTING
In the first three arguments, we have discussed how religion affects the food of everyday life (what, how, and how much). On the other hand, religion has produced special occasions, and food is essentially the medium by which these occasions are celebrated or performed (i.e. when to eat a lot). These occasions are called feasts. It can be averred that most, if not all religions have feasts. On the other hand, the withholding of food is likewise a religious act, often commendable, and it is called fast (i.e. when not to eat). As regards feasts, Twiss (2008) introduces her subject:

Feasting is a universal human phenomenon. It is powerful and often transformative; through feasting, social identities are both enacted and altered, political competitions are undertaken, and ideologies are inculcated. Feasting can play a key role in constructing and validating social norms by valorizing innovative materials, concepts, and practices.

We see these food practices prominently in Christianity, where, as Bynum (1985) avers, “feasting and fasting are at the heart of the Christian tradition.” In Christianity, the major feast of Christmas is a time of celebration in many countries, accompanied with an abundance of food. In the Philippines, for instance, the Christmas season is at least a weeks-long festivity, heralded with numerous “Christmas parties”, a noche buena on Christmas eve and a media noche on New Year’s Eve.

In Islam, the Ramadan is a whole month of fasting, followed by a day of feasting, the Eid al Fitr.
Materialist explanations of feasts include the creation of opportunities to distribute proteins and other essential foods. For instance, Diskin (1978) and Greenberg (1981) have suggested that high-quality protein and vitamin-rich foods distributed during the cycles of festivals in the rural Mexican villages they studied may make substantial contributions to the diets of poor participants. Furthermore, the timing of the festivals seems to have been such that food distribution took place during periods when the population was most in need of protein and nutrients.

Other anthropologists trace feasts as occasions of thanking the gods and divine forces for harvest, with the hope of an abundant year to come. Also, the many social functions of a feast are well described in anthropological literature; they are “central arenas of social action that have had a profound impact on the course of historical transformations...they articulate and inculcate existing social categories, such as status, power, gender, and age.” (Dietler and Hayden, 2001). Still, some archaeologists suggest that feasting, with its emphasis on the consumption of large animals, may have actually contributed to the domestication of animals (Twiss, 2008).

Fasting, on the other hand, is invested with much symbolic meaning, but rational explanations have included the health benefits of caloric restriction. Moreover, some studies have looked into the health benefits of specific religious practices. For instamce, Sarri (2001) found that adherence to Greek Orthodox fasting periods contributes to an improvement in the blood lipid profile, including a decrease in total and LDL cholesterol, and a decrease in the LDL to HDL cholesterol ratio.

POSTSCRIPT: RELIGION IN FOOD IN A SECULAR, MODERN WORLD
Even with the apparent decline of religion as the dominant force in society, its roles on food has, in some ways persisted. “Food is the last bastion of culture” and perhaps this can be said too of religion. On the other hand, religion has been supplanted in some ways by other forces, such as medicine and the government.

 For instance, it can be seen that biomedicine has taken over religion as the prescriber of which foods to eat and which to avoid. Gluttony may have been dangerous to your soul, but today, obesity is dangerous to your health. The Bible cautions against drinking too much alcohol, but today it is the government that requires the placement of “drink moderately” on advertisements. Vegetarianism, once a religious decision, is now motivated by numerous health reasons.

Some aspects of religion in food, however, have been strengthened by other institutions. For instance, by explaining the health reasons for some religious proscriptions, they can be reinforced, such as the washing of hands. Also, governments with a sizeable Muslim population have actually standardized and regulated halal foods by establishing regulatory bodies. In the Philippines, the Islamic Da’wah Council of the Philippines, Inc., (IDCP) is the duly recognized Halal Certification and Accreditation Authority under G.R. No. 153888 dated July 09, 2003.

On the other hand, what began as religious institutions have become secularized, or are now used in non-religious contexts. Hunger strikes, for instance, are political acts that remain a potent weapon used by activists, most famously Mahatma Gandhi, and its power can be traced to its spiritual significance. Likewise, religious feasts are now celebrated as purely secular events. In the Philippines, this is seen in the Christmas holiday season, which is arguably the season during which the most amount (and variety) of food is consumed in the Philippines. A critical approach to Christmas would look at how politico-economic structures, such as commercial institutions, have helped perpetuate this tradition.

On a final note, the technological advances of the modern age is creating “new foods”, and it is interesting how the acceptance of these foods can still be seen in terms of religious proscriptions. It can be said that there is a “taboo on genetically modified foods”, and in spite of the advantages, the popular opposition against them remains strong and can we not harken back to Mary Douglas’ words and call these foods “taxonomic anomalies”? Indeed, nutritional anthropology is needed, more than ever, in light of these emerging issues.

CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have discussed how religion has shaped what we eat, how we eat, how much we eat, and when we eat more (and when we do not eat). Understanding food practices, that is, nutritional anthropology, must always involve an understanding of the various religions of a certain society. For as long as humans eat, food will be inextricably linked with religion, mediator and mediated by it, and even where the influence of religion has waned, we will always be told that we ought to eat, and for whenever and whatever we ought not to eat, and the voice will not be too far that says: “Thou shall not eat.”

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