Health Without Bodies

Health Without Bodiesinvites readers on an ethnographic exploration oftheboundary between food and medicine.Food-relatedhealth claims are governedin the EUas voluntary statements on food labels to help consumers make 'informed choices'. This poses an interesting problem: when claims refer to health, one can no longer ignore that consumers have bodies. Asking how these claims have become possibleas a new kind of truth-statementon the market,this book reveals the contours of a fundamental tension between what is expected from consumers in a liberal market economy, and how food and the body come to trouble those expectations.In doing so, itilluminateswhy the difference between food and medicine is such a sensitive issue, and why seemingly trivial health claimshave beensubject to so much debate and political control. Afterword by Isabelle Stengers.