Food Cults

Kima Cargill, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology at University of Washington, Tacoma. She is the author of The Psychology of Overeating: Food and the Culture of Consumerism, and has published numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Understanding how food fads and diets can develop a fervent following that rise to the level of a cult is a new area of study and often overlooked. Here, Kima Cargill and other experts shed fresh light on the subject, revealing how and why such cults may develop among certain communities.

Introduction by Kima Cargill1. The Psychology of Food Cults by Kima Cargill2. The Allure Of Food Cults: Balancing Pseudoscience And Healthy Skepticism by Leighann R. Chaffee and Corey L. Cook3. Food Practices In Early Christianity by Paul A. Brazinski4. Juicing: Language, Ritual, And Placebo Sociality In A Community Of Extreme Eaters by Samuel Veissière and Liona Gibbs-Bravo5. Contemporary Superfood Cults: Nutritionism, Neoliberalism and Gender by Tina Sikka6. Gluttons Galore - A Rising Faction in Food Discourses and Dining Experiences by Carlnita Greene7. Caving In: The Appeal of the Paleo Diet in the Wake of 9/11 by Lenore Bell8. "Of Bananas And Cavemen": Unlikely Similarities Between Two Online Food Communities by Amanda Maxfield and Andrea Rissing9. Eschew Your Food: Foodies, Healthism And The Elective Restrictive Diet By Michele Scott10. Breaking Bread: The Clashing Cults of Sourdough and Gluten-Free By L. Sasha Gora11. The Gluten-Free Cult: A World Without Wheat by Jennifer Martin12. Erasure of Indigenous Food Memories and (Re-)Imaginations by Preety Gadhoke and Barrett P. Brenton13. "Herb Is For The Healing Of The Nation!" -Marijuana As A Consumable Vegetable Among Ghetto Muslim Youth Of Maamobi In Accra, Ghana by De-Valera Botchway and Charles Prempeh14. What Makes A Good Mother? Mother's Conceptions Of Good Food by Liora Gvion & Irit Sharir