Creating Healthy Bodies in Rural Ecuador at a Time of Dietary Shift

Resumen

This chapter focuses on how people act to keep themselves and their loved ones healthy in peasant communities in northern Ecuador. It particularly discusses the eating and feeding practices of mothers of young children since the emergent quality of the embodiment of food practices can be seen most clearly in the visible growth of young children. Ecuador's diverse altitudes contribute to diet diversity and encourage reciprocal relations between unique ecological zones. The chapter considers Michael Carolan's lead to think about the embodiment of food politics as well as the relations that hold people together through food. The empirical study of situated food practice sheds light on how transformation occurs without simplifying its heterogeneity. The chapter draws on experiences in two highland Andean villages near the towns of San Isidro and El Angel (approximately 3,200 meters above sea level (masl)) and a lowland area around the town of Ambuquí.