This paper investigates the effect of nocebo suggestions on food craving levels and explores whether personality traits, specifically neuroticism and impulsivity, moderate this impact. The study...Show moreThis paper investigates the effect of nocebo suggestions on food craving levels and explores whether personality traits, specifically neuroticism and impulsivity, moderate this impact. The study was conducted using a sample of 21 volunteers which were recruited from Leiden University, and used a randomised controlled trial design. The two groups that were used in the analysis were control and nocebo groups (increase hunger). Nocebo group participants received a sham vagus nerve stimulation and were exposed to suggestions that this stimulation will increase their hunger. Food craving was measured using a Visual Analogue Scale at different time points throughout the experiment, and self-report inventories were used to assess neuroticism and impulsivity. A repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and a moderation analysis were performed to analyse the data. The results showed significant changes in craving intensity, F(3, 57) = 11.14, p < .001, with higher craving levels in the control group compared to the nocebo group. Neither neuroticism F(3, 17) = 0.37, p = .77, nor impulsivity, F(3, 17) = 2.11, p = .14, were significant in moderating the relationship between nocebo suggestions and food cravings. However, impulsivity independently showed a significant negative effect on craving ratings, where higher impulsivity was related to lower food cravings, b = -11.07, t(df) = -2.18, p = .04. The study’s limitations included a small sample size and ambiguous definitions of nocebo effects, which could have affected the results. Future research should focus on exploring other personality traits to deepen our understanding of their effect on nocebo suggestions and food cravings.Show less
This research tries to examine if, and how, the Byzantine and Sasanian culinary traditions and diet were influenced by one another. The Byzantine and Sasanian empires had a complicated relationship...Show moreThis research tries to examine if, and how, the Byzantine and Sasanian culinary traditions and diet were influenced by one another. The Byzantine and Sasanian empires had a complicated relationship, with continuing wars on one end, and dependence on trade on the other. The silk road was situated on Sasanian land, and Byzantium was forced to use the Sasanian empire as a middle man. The respective agricultures produced basic produce for the whole empires, but for exotic spices and herbs, the empires were dependent on the silk road. There is not much written on the Sasanian diet, but a few products are known to have been cultivated. Some sources give information on the extravagant diet of the nobility, which includes different vegetables, grains, fruits, spices, meats and sweets. In the last decades there has been more research on the Byzantine empire, which also included diet. Most information about the Byzantine diet comes from dietary handbooks and descriptions, most of which are written about Constantinople. It is possible that these sources are more about an ideal diet, than based on reality. The sources describe many different fruits, vegetables, spices, meats, fish and grains. This conveys the image of an extravagant and varied diet, but the results bone isotope analysis in Greece show dietary deficiencies. It seems that at least between the capitol and the province, there is a difference of availability of food. Comparing the two diets, there are some similarities, mostly when it comes to spices. Because there is not as much data on the Sasanian diet, there are more products that are known to have been present in Byzantium and not the Sasanian empire, than the other way around. When comparing both diets to the current Iranian diet, there seems to be a continuation of some of the Sasanian traditions. There also seem to be some similarities between the Byzantine diet and the current Iranian diet. To get a clear picture of the diet of the average citizen of the empires, not only the elite, more research is needed. For example, isotope analyses of different regions of the empire.Show less
It is commonly accepted that food is part of heritage; indeed, food, because of its universal character, carries an emotional value that makes it a fundamental component of identity-making. Food...Show moreIt is commonly accepted that food is part of heritage; indeed, food, because of its universal character, carries an emotional value that makes it a fundamental component of identity-making. Food heritage was given an international recognition in 2010 when the UNESCO inscribed the first culinary practices on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Taking the Gastronomic Meal of the French registered in 2010, and the Japanese Washoku inscribed in 2013, this paper explores the issues surrounding the listing of national culinary traditions by the UNESCO. First, comparing the registration processes in France and Japan allows to understand how both elements can be perceived as “invented traditions”. However, the inscription had various consequences; if both countries used the UNESCO label for political and economic purposes, it seems like France did it to a lesser degree than Japan. Finally, a newspapers analysis shows the divergent reactions in the French and Japanese media and underlines the political nature of the inscription.Show less
A Bite of China is a food-themed documentary that was broadcast on the China Central Television(CCTV) on May 14, 2014. It has soon become popular among both domestic and International audiences....Show moreA Bite of China is a food-themed documentary that was broadcast on the China Central Television(CCTV) on May 14, 2014. It has soon become popular among both domestic and International audiences. However, the show is not considered to be just food-related, but a way to present China's history and culture through the country's cuisine. The popularity of A Bite of China has spurred my curiosity to investigate the factors that contribute to the attractiveness of the series. Food serves as a window through which both domestic and international audiences get to understand China's culinary culture. According to the statements of Director Chen Xiaoqing, the main motivation to create the series is to show China's culinary culture to the whole world in order to promote Chinese culture. Since it is challenging to collect and analyze the audiences' feedback about the show, l will focus on the producers' perspectives to investigate the production and presentation of A Bite of China. In this thesis, the concept of soft power which proposed by American scholar Joseph.S.Nye will be applied in the analysis of the show. The connection between China's soft power and the presentation of the show will be built to some extent.Show less
This thesis will discuss the differences between professional and non-professional Dutch and English texts informing the readers of the dangers of sugar and tobacco consumption. While the hazards...Show moreThis thesis will discuss the differences between professional and non-professional Dutch and English texts informing the readers of the dangers of sugar and tobacco consumption. While the hazards of smoking are widely known, the anti-sugar lobby is a fairly recent phenomenon. The thesis demonstrates how this has affected the articles written about either subject. The analyses in the first chapter reveal several differences between professional and non-professional texts as well as Dutch and English texts, especially where the use deixis and modal verbs are concerned. It pays special attention to the various persuasion strategies used by the authors, which are not only influenced by the manner in which the author is involved in the issue, but also by the audience’s culture. The second chapter indentifies and attempts to solve the various translation problems which occur on pragmatic, cultural, linguistic and text-specific levels when translating articles into the Target Language. Chapter three contains a critical analysis of the translation tool used to identify the articles’ text type: the Text Type Triangle by Dr. Chesterman, which is based on the nowadays outdated text typology developed by Katharina Reiss. Reiss’s text typology, and in extension the Triangle, was developed long before the Internet, which has a profound effect on the manner in which people communicate, became available to the average person. This chapter introduces an updated version of the Triangle, which does take the Internet as a means of communication into account. Finally the conclusion will summarise the questions answered and the data presented in the thesis and will also ask several questions which were raised by the analyses, but which could not be answered.Show less
Since, as anthropologists and cultural critics have argued, food and food practices constitute a system of communication that conveys social meaning, food as a cultural and social practice and as a...Show moreSince, as anthropologists and cultural critics have argued, food and food practices constitute a system of communication that conveys social meaning, food as a cultural and social practice and as a literary trope provides insight into society and culture and the identities they produce. If we are what we eat, food is an important means to define and, more specifically, perform our identities. In a globalizing world, in which both people and products constantly travel, food follows migratory flows. When placed in a political, economic, and cultural context food functions as a boundary marker as well as a boundary crosser. This makes food a useful trope in postcolonial and other migrant literature in particular, as these novels explore the effects of migration and cultural encounters on the formation, negotiation, and performance of identities. Placing my reading of Desai’s postcolonial novel The Inheritance of Loss in the theoretical framework of food theories, I will argue that Desai uses food as a metaphorical instrument not only to deconstruct colonial identities, such as that of the Anglophile judge and his friends, and fixed ethnic identities, such as Biju’s, but also to imagine more fluid, multiple, migrant identities, such as Saeed Saeed’s, and to focus attention on unequal power relations and the fluidity of nationhood and national identity.Show less
From the perspective of food, I describe the identity changes of the Taiwanese people from 1949 to 2013: in the Japanese colonial period, Taiwanese preferred Chinese food and showed their Chinese...Show moreFrom the perspective of food, I describe the identity changes of the Taiwanese people from 1949 to 2013: in the Japanese colonial period, Taiwanese preferred Chinese food and showed their Chinese identity. After 1945, followed by accepting mainland food, mainlanders became an ethnic group of Taiwan. From 1988, Taiwanese began to hybrid the food in Taiwan and create its own Taiwanese cuisine. Local people that labeled themselves as Taiwanese instead of Chinese were guided by the government and other mediums. When it comes to the step of global promotion, it can be found from the food festivals and night markets that Taiwanese want to sell its food culture to the foreign tourists. Food, as uniqueness in Taiwanese minds, is chosen to identify what is Taiwanese and to be consumed by others.Show less
I will show that contemporary studies have been focusing mainly on the creation of a single, more or less standardized Japanese cuisine, rather than on variations in local cuisine. I will further...Show moreI will show that contemporary studies have been focusing mainly on the creation of a single, more or less standardized Japanese cuisine, rather than on variations in local cuisine. I will further discuss the current situation of the Japanese food culture and rise in the popularity of 'affordable versus expensive food' and how this popularity is used in the domestic tourism sector of Japan. This will be done by two case studies: the first is tourism promotion through television and the second is through travel guide books.Show less
Food and eating habits are good indicators of wider social changes and appetite for multi-ethnic eating can be perceived as one step forward to accepting and understanding the meaning of diversity....Show moreFood and eating habits are good indicators of wider social changes and appetite for multi-ethnic eating can be perceived as one step forward to accepting and understanding the meaning of diversity. In migration studies, the socio-historical analysis of the relationship between migrants and food practices provides a fresh perspective on the cultural encounters between communities. The aim of my research is to explore the private space of the Dutch eating habits and the more or less successful integration of foreign kitchens. In detail, this paper looks at how and to what extent have foreign cuisines, especially the Indonesian and Moroccan, affected the Dutch eating culture from 1950 until 2000. The results show trends of appropriation of culinary knowledge and adoption of culinary authenticity.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
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Brazil was one of the first in the world to start with bioethanol production and is one of the biggest bioethanol producers nowadays. Brazil’s bioethanol production is viewed as successful for the...Show moreBrazil was one of the first in the world to start with bioethanol production and is one of the biggest bioethanol producers nowadays. Brazil’s bioethanol production is viewed as successful for the domestic market and export. This research focuses on the first generation biofuel production in Brazil because of the direct use of food crops for production and consequently generating the ‘food versus fuel-competition’. It will be interesting to look at the position of Brazil’s biofuel production with regard to different theories on the effects and impacts of biofuels.Show less
