Jesús Contreras Hernández* and Joan Ribas Serra Are nutrients also good to think? DOI 10.1515/sem-2016-0111 Abstract: Since Lévi-Strauss’ declaration “good to think, good to eat,” the social sciences have supported the idea that foods first have to be edible for our minds and only subsequently physically digested by our organism. If so, then it is culture that creates the categories that we use to classify foods. But, with the process of nutrionalization, food is understood as a collection of biochemical nutrients that are necessary in order to achieve the balance needed to live a long and healthy life. The categories scientists use to classify our foods have changed considerably. This fact implies an important qualitative change in our percep- tion of food and our diet in its totality. With food technology, nutrition and genetics food identification (identity?) escapes the reach of today’s citizens as members of each respective culture. In any case, even if our primary preoccupa- tion seems to be exclusively nutrit ional, and today it is very easy to “modify” the foods we eat and create new combinations to “improve” our diet, we must not forget that those food habits that are damaging our health are also deter- mined by sociocultural factors because when we “modify” the original composi- tion of a food, it seems that we are acknowledging the importance of such sociocultural factors. Keywords: food culture, nutrizionalization, cultural diet, food identity, food change, individualization 1 Food as cultural subsystem Bon à penser, bon à manger – C. Lévi-Strauss Ever since Lévi-Strauss’ (1964) declaration “good to think, good to eat” came about, the social sciences have supported the idea that foods first have to be edible for our minds and only subsequently physically digested by our *Corresponding author: Jesús Contreras Hernández, Universitat de Barcelona, Montalegre 6-8, 08001 Barcelona, Spain, E-mail: contreras@ub.edu Joan Ribas Serra, Universitat de Barcelona, Montalegre 6-8, 08001 Barcelona, Spain, E-mail: joanribas@ub.edu Semiotica 2016; 211: 139–163 Brought to you by | University of South Carolina Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 3/2/17 3:41 AM