Throughout American history, ingestion (eating) has functioned as a metaphor for interpreting and imagining this society and its political systems. Discussions of American freedom itself are
pervaded with ingestive metaphors of choice (what to put in) and control (what to keep out). From the country’s founders to the abolitionists to the social activists of today, those seeking
to form and reform American society have cast their social-change goals in ingestive terms of choice and control. But they have realized their metaphors in concrete terms as well, purveying
specific advice to the public about what to eat or not. These conversations about "social change as eating" reflect American ideals of freedom, purity, and virtue.
Drawing on social and political history as well as the history of science and popular culture,Dangerous Digestion examines how American ideas about dietary reform mirror broader
thinking about social reform. Inspired by new scientific studies of the human body as a metabiomea collaboration of species rather than an isolated, intact, protected, and bounded
individualE. Melanie DuPuis reimagines the American body politic through a new metaphordigestionopening social transformations to ideas of mixing, fermentation, and collaboration. In doing
so, the author explores how social activists can rethink politics as inclusive processes that involve the inherently risky mixing of cultures, standpoints, and ideas.
