SHOULD WE SET A PLACE FOR DIET IN ETHNOPHARMACOLOGY

Ethnopharmacologic inquiry is most evincibly pursued by addressing "medicinals" across the divers contexts through which populations gain exposure to the material of their pharmacopoeia. Attention to multiple categories of use advances our comprehension of indigenous health care by providing a framework for laboratory investigations that explore the bioactive potential of the materia medica to influence the occurrence and expression of disease, and that determine how those physiologic outcomes may be further mediated by the context-specific vicissitudes of preparation, combination and consumption. Consideration of the dietary contexts of local "medicines" is central to this wider perspective.