What categories do we use for foods (traditional foods, not nutrition components)? 2) What are the criteria fo

Question

people had categories that distinguished food from filth (clean/unclean, pure/polluted) and may also have classified (or at least stored) foods according to the ecological zone (domain) from which they came.

1) What categories do we use for foods (traditional foods, not nutrition components)? 2) What are the criteria for assigning an item to a category?

Answer 1

Our noses are the best classifers of what is food, and what is filth!

Even animals do this with food that is laying on the ground. They give it the sniff-test, before tasting it!

Answer 2

If you are reading Marvin Harris, then I think you are referring to the following categories in the Bible:

‘These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth.

3 ‘Whatever divides a hoof, thus making split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat.

4 ‘Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you.

5 ‘Likewise, the shaphan, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you;

6 the rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you;

7 and the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hoof, it does not chew cud, it is unclean to you.