Marvin Harris Quotes

The Touchables, whether they are vegetarians or flesh-eaters, are united in their objection to eat cow's flesh. As against them stand the Untouchables, who eat cow's flesh without compunction and as a matter of course and habit.

A few years ago, kids from poor areas in France were asked to draw items of food. For a chicken, they drew a drumstick. For a fish, they drew a fish stick. Those are extremes, but there is a lot that needs to be done to help children discover good food.

It looks to me to be obvious that the whole world cannot eat an American diet.

I like to do projects in which you can see statistical results. I am very happy for all these small children, who have been the biggest group of victims of iodine deficiency.

My idea of good living is not about eating high on the hog. Rather, to me, good living means understanding how food connects us to the earth.

I gotta tell you, right at the top of my list would be taking vitamins. I know that over the years doctors have said they're ridiculous and all that. But I started taking my vitamins at an early age. And I take them every day. Every bloody day! So I think that's number one. For whatever reason, I feel active and pretty good at my age.

The implications of Americans devoting their lives to fast food are more profound than the fact that our kids aren't eating well. There are real repercussions that we need to know about and think about.

It is only partly true that religion does more harm than good in society. The community makes God into the image it wants, vengeful, or milky sweet, or scrupulously just, and so on.

The French, who love their dogs, sometimes eat their horses. The Spanish, who love their horses, sometimes eat their cows. The Indians, who love their cows, sometimes eat their dogs.

We struggle with eating healthily, obesity, and access to good nutrition for everyone. But we have a great opportunity to get on the right side of this battle by beginning to think differently about the way that we eat and the way that we approach food.

If you want to turn out an atheist child, unconditional love constantly is a good way to do it.

It started when I moved into a vegetarian co-op back in the '70s, and that's really when I had my food consciousness awakened. I learned how to cook, and eventually I became the food buyer for the entire co-op. Not long after that, I went to work for a small natural food store in Austin, and I became very excited and passionate about it.

People in my neighborhood are so disconnected from the fresh food supply that kids don't know an eggplant from a sweet potato. We have to show them how to get grounded in the truest sense of the word.

India is mostly vegetarian, and I think that will be crucial to changing the world. I think the United States is lost.

As a child I was sometimes so hungry that I used to dream that one day I'd get locked in a grocery store.

People have their cultural reasons for eating meat, their traditional reasons, their likes and dislikes.

American food is not what I'm used to - everything is like three portions.

Hopefully, imparting what's important to me, respect for the food and that information about the purveyors, people will realize that for a restaurant to be good, so many pieces have to come together.

We eat as sons and daughters, as families, as communities, as generations, as nations, and increasingly as a globe. We can't stop our eating from radiating influence even if we want to.

In this country, the health concerns and the environmental concerns are as deep as in Europe. All the surveys show that. But here, we didn't have the cultural dimension. This is a fast-food culture.

Our demand for meat, dairy and refined carbohydrates - the world consumes one billion cans or bottles of Coke a day - our demand for these things, not our need, our want - drives us to consume way more calories than are good for us.

Food is no longer sacred to us: in becoming too efficient we've changed its nature.

The question is not only what is grown but what it's used for. There's not going to be a mass transformation of dietary habits in rich countries-on the contrary, the first thing people do when they become more prosperous is to buy more meat.

I think that food ties us to our community and our traditions, and it's the thing that makes us feel good and connected.

Food is a very sensitive subject for so many people.