The Chemistry of Diet: Medicine, Nutrition, and Staple Foods in Imperial Brazil

Author(s)

de Mendonca Couto, Cristiana Loureiro

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: AMBIX; v. 62, n. 4, p. 18-pg., 2015-01-01.

Abstract

Brazilian cuisine is much admired by present-day international chefs. However, in the nineteenth century, local ingredients and recipes were looked down upon by the Portuguese colonists, as well as by visiting European naturalists. This fact, together with medical and chemical views formulated throughout the 1800s, led locally trained doctors to attribute the occurrence of countless diseases that devastated Rio de Janeiro to local staple foods, particularly corn and manioc flour. In the first part of the present article, I review the dietary habits of Brazilians through the eyes of European naturalists who travelled across the country in the early nineteenth century. In the second part, I summarise the ideas formulated by French and German chemists on the components, and consequent nutritional value, of cereals and other sources of flour, and then analyse the appropriation of such ideas-particularly those of Justus Liebig-by Brazilian doctors and their adaptation to local conditions. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/25181-5 - Plastic and respiratory foods: concepts and discussions about nutrition in chemical medical sciences and their role in 19th Century cookbooks
• Grantee: Cristiana Loureiro de Mendonça Couto
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral