A Geography of Digestion - (California Studies in Food and Culture) by Nicholas Bauch (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A Geography of Digestion explores the legacy of the Kellogg Company, one of America's most enduring and storied food enterprises. In the late nineteenth century, company founder John H. Kellogg was experimenting with state-of-the-art advances in nutritional and medical science at his Battle Creek Sanitarium. At the same time, he was involved in overhauling the form and function of the broader landscapes in which his health practice was situated. Innovations in food-manufacturing machinery, urban sewer infrastructure, and agricultural technology came together to forge an extensible geography of his patients' bodies, changing the way Americans consumed and digested food. In this novel approach to the study of the Kellogg enterprise, Nicholas Bauch asks his readers to think geographically about the process of digesting food. Beginning with the stomach, Bauch moves outward from the sanitarium through the landscapes and technologies that materialized Kellogg's particular version of digestion. Far from a set of organs confined to the epidermal bounds of the body, the digestive system existed in other places. Moving from food-processing machines, to urban sewerage, to agricultural fields, A Geography of Digestion paints a grounded portrait of one of the most basic human processes of survival--the incorporation of food into our bodies--leading us to question where exactly our bodies are located"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A Geography of Digestion is a highly original exploration of the legacy of the Kellogg Company, one of America's most enduring and storied food enterprises. In the late nineteenth century, company founder John H. Kellogg was experimenting with state-of-the-art advances in nutritional and medical science at his Battle Creek Sanitarium. Believing that good health depended on digesting the right foods in the right way, Kellogg thought that proper digestion could not happen without improved technologies, including innovations in food-processing machinery, urban sewer infrastructure, and agricultural production that changed the way Americans consumed and assimilated food. Asking his readers to think about mapping the processes and locations of digestion, Nicholas Bauch moves outward from the stomach to the sanitarium and through the landscape, clarifying the relationship between food, body, and environment at a crucial moment in the emergence of American health food sensibilities.

From the Back Cover

"Nicholas Bauch navigates the reader from the microscale of bodily organs and bacteria to the macroscale of the nation. Written in engaging and lucid prose, A Geography of Digestion blurs the boundaries between inside and outside, between the inner geographies of the human body and their projection on the landscape. Thoroughly researched, captivating, and compellingly geographical, this is one of those rare academic books you will find hard to put down."--Veronica della Dora, Royal Holloway, University of London

"A Geography of Digestion tells a fascinating story that connects the Kelloggs; the rise of the Adventist tradition; the Battle Creek Sanitarium; new scientific ideas about nature, nutrition, health, and agriculture; germ theory; waste disposal infrastructure; and a variety of emerging technologies and economies. I know of no other work that draws such rich connections for this moment in time. Scholarly and lay readers alike will enjoy Bauch's talent for writing the body, technology, and socio-nature."--Dawn Day Biehler, author of Pests in the City: Flies, Bedbugs, Cockroaches, and Rats

Review Quotes

"An imaginative contribution to food studies . . . it presents new questions for historians who are bold enough to stomach them."-- "Winterthur Portfolio"

"Taking a step back to consider the bigger picture--restoring historical depth and geographic breadth to ideas about eating badly--lets us see how certain interests have converged to make salty/sugary snacks not just strategic staples for households that cannot access fresh produce, but cherished parts of the cultural iconography. Nicholas Bauch does exactly this in his fascinating A Geography of Digestion: Biotechnology and the Kellogg Cereal Enterprise."-- "PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review"

About the Author

Nicholas Bauch is Assistant Professor of Geohumanities in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability at the University of Oklahoma.