O (nie)naturalności jedzenia. Pokarmy i technologie biomedyczne w chorobach metabolicznych
On the (Un)Naturalness of Eating: Foods and Biomedical Technologies in Metabolic Disorders

Summary/Abstract: Tube feeding, both in its media portrayals and in the public view is usually associated with the elderly and/or the dying. Medical anthropology scholarship has often attended to this biomedical technology in the context of “new definitions of death and life” that blurs other meanings associated with tube feeding and/or PEG. This article examines LCHAD deficiency, a rare metabolic disease that is treated with a special diet. Since 2016, my research has focused on patients, their parents, physicians, and members of patient advocacy groups in Poland and Finland. I address experiences of patients who have been tube fed, their family caregivers, and dietitians. Due to dietary recommendations, patients with LCHAD deficiency are often perceived to have an “attitude towards eating” that is far from “normal.” They either eat too often or do not eat at all. The biomedical approach aims at providing sufficient nutrition to patients’ bodies via the feeding tube. I argue that it does not, however, account for eating as a process of building socio-cultural relations that have been analyzed in anthropological scholarship. Moreover, I show that biomedical technology may contribute to questioning the “naturalness” of eating in this case.

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