Consuming the inedible : neglected dimensions of food choice / edited by Jeremy MacClancy, Jeya Henry, and Helen Macbeth.

New York : Berghahn Books, 2007.

xiv, 242 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Introduction : Considering the inedible, consuming the ineffable / Jeremy MacClancy, Helen Macbeth and Jeya Henry -- Evidence for the consumption of the inedible : who, what, when, where and why? / Sera L.Young -- Consuming the inedible : pica behaviour / Carmen Strungaru -- The concepts of food and non-food : perspectives from Spain / Isabel González Turmo -- Food definitions and boundaries : eating constraints and human identities / Ellen Messer -- A vile habit? the potential biological consequences of geophagia, with special attention to iron / Sera L. Young --

The discovery of human zinc deficiency : a reflective journey back in time / Ananda S. Prasad -- Geophagia and human nutrition / Peter Hooda and Jeya Henry -- Consumption of materials with low nutritional value and bioactive properties : non-human primates vs. humans / Sabrina Krief -- Lime as the key element : a 'non-food' in food for subsistence / Ricardo Ávila, Martín Tena and Peter Hubbard -- Salt as a 'non-food': to what extent do gustatory perceptions determine non-food vs. food choices? / Claude Marcel Hladik --

Non-food food during famine : the Athens famine survivor project / Antonia-Leda Matalas and Louis E. Grivetti -- Eating garbage : socially marginal food provisioning practices / Rachel Black -- Eating cat in the north of Spain in the early twentieth century / F. Xavier Medina -- Insects : forgotten and rediscovered as food. Entomophagy among the Eipo, highlands of West New Guinea, and in other traditional societies / Wulf Schiefenhövel and Paul Blum --

Eating snot : socially unacceptable but common. Why? / María Jesús Portalatín -- Cannibalism : no myth, but why so rare? / Helen Macbeth, Wulf Schiefenhövel, and Paul Collinson -- From edible to inedible : social construction, family socialisation, and upbringing / Luis Cantarero -- The use of waste products in the fermentation of alcoholic beverages / Rodolfo Fernández and Daria Deraga -- Afterword : Earthy realism : geophagia in literature and art / Jeremy MacClancy.

Includes bibliographical references and index.