Treated and vaccinated, watery and carcinogenic

the colonization of indigenous diets by meat production systems

Abstract

In this article I address a particular phenomenon that has not yet been studied in the set of changes in Native diets promoted by the contact with foods, flavors and culinary practices of non- Indians: namely, the consumption of products from exotic animal species introduced after the encounter with whites. We know that the meat of several of these beings (mainly chickens, oxen and domestic pigs), as well as other products extracted from some of these animals (especially eggs and milk), have frequented the menus of several indigenous groups for some time, but little has been spoken on the local forms of incorporation of these novelties, perhaps because all products of animal origin have been considered as one and the same thing: just only meat, milk, and eggs. Here, drawing on my own research material among the Karitiana and based on other historical and ethnographic references, I argue that these new foods are often clearly distinguished of native foods. This distinction also supports ways of reflecting on these processes of colonization of indigenous diets, functioning as a form of criticism not only for these post-contact changes, but also for the contemporary processes of food production among non-Indians.