J. F. BROCK 
of cooking and fermenting in iron pots. In terms of the 
introductory paragraphs of this article, the replacement of 
earthenware pots by iron pots, even among a primitive people 
like the Bantu, may be regarded as an example of sophistication 
of diets. At a more advanced level of cultural organization, 
there has been considerable speculation about the possibilities 
of aluminium poisoning from the use of aluminium saucepans. 
In twentieth-century technological sophistication the extensive 
use of tin cans for the storage and transport of foodstuffs has 
introduced further possibilities for trace element accumulation. 
FOOD FADDISM 
Food faddism goes back a long way in man’s history!2. It is 
inevitable that the technological sophistication of the twentieth- 
century should be countered by back-to-nature faddists. These 
fall into several broad groups including: (1) Those who 
advocate as little processing of foods as possible. (2) Those 
who believe that artificial fertilizers for vegetable crops are 
inferior to natural humus. (3) Those who advocate taboos on 
one or more foods which are regarded by scientific nutritionists 
as healthy, e.g. vegetarians and vegans. (4) Those who believe 
that certain combinations of foods are unhealthy while the 
same foods are healthy when consumed at separate meals, as in 
Hay’s Diet. 
A few comments on these four groups of food fads may be in 
order. 
(1) The objections of the first group have been dealt with in 
the rather full remarks in this paper on the respective advan- 
tages and disadvantages of technological food sophistication. 
This cult provides, however, a useful corrective to the enthu- 
siasms of commercial food entrepreneurs. (2) The supporters 
of natural humus against artificial fertilizers have, in essence, 
a case which would be accepted by most scientists if it were 
restated not as a mystique, but in scientific terms of specific 
nutrients, such as trace elements, missing from the soil. (3) The 
case propounded by vegetarians and vegans appears to the 
writer to be based mainly on considerations other than those of 
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