Adorcism, Nutrition and Health in Bahia's Candomblés

Abstract

This article seeks to develop a reflection based on the investigation of the eating practices of some Candomblé terreiros in the region of Novos Alagados, a neighborhood located in Subúrbio Ferroviário of Salvador/Bahia, one of the most underserved areas by the city's health system. Objective: To analyze the religious eating practices of Candomblés in Bahia. Methodology: An ethnographic research was carried out based on systematic data collection. Religious leaders and people responsible for the preparation of food in 04 (four) terreiros in the area were interviewed. Results and Discussion: In Candomblé, the eating practice approaches the adorcist health model proposed by François Laplantine (2004) (1) based on the contributions of Luc de Heusch (1971).(2) Thus, when considering the use of food in Candomblé, there was a movement that goes from nutrition towards social practices.Final Considerations: From this shift from the biological and metabolic to the social and anthropological, we sought to present religious food practices as an interdisciplinary field where the understanding of Nutritional phenomena go beyond the biological conception and provoke in researchers the need to move towards a truer approximation to the socio-cultural reality of each people.