Consuming the Inedible is the sixth volume in the series The Anthropology of Food and Nutrition edited by Helen Macbeth. This particular volume emerged out of a conference entitled Non-Food as Food (Oxford Brookes University, July 2005), and contains contributions from authors representing a range of sub-disciplines within anthropology, nutrition, history and geography. The volume consists of eighteen short chapters; these are preceded by an introduction by the three editors and followed by an afterword written by MacClancy.

The editors offer a compelling introduction, emphasizing the breadth of ‘non-foods’ that feature in the diets of both humans and non-human primates. They then briefly highlight the challenges associated with defining what is meant by ‘inedible’. For nutritionists, for instance, inedible items are substances that do not feature on food composition tables, for anthropologists they may be items that are taboo, while for psychiatrists they are things that are unusual to the extent that consuming them represents a ‘behavioural deviance’. After acknowledging this debate, the editors put it aside so that they are able to focus on their stated aims ‘to highlight a neglected topic’, ‘to stimulate further discussion’ and to ‘promote a cross-disciplinary agenda’ on the topic.

The chapters, some literature reviews and several based on original and interesting research, cover topics including: pica (there are several chapters that review this, and one of the reviews is much more comprehensive than the other); the changing definition of the Spanish term for ‘food’; a brief anthropological review of food and non-food; geophagia (several chapters) and minerals, including iron, zinc, lime and salt; the consumption of foods with low nutritional value by non-human primates; the role of socialization and upbringing in food choice; the impacts of famine; and the consumption of waste products, cat, snot, insects, and humans. The book concludes with MacClancy's afterword, a chapter about geophagia in literature and art, which is best read as a nineteenth chapter. While all of the chapters are summarized in the introduction, it is not clear how they might articulate.

A book on this topic is welcome because, as the editors highlight in the introduction, non-foods have typically been ignored by nutritionists. The broad focus of this book is both good and bad. The volume is in danger of appearing in places superficial, disjointed and repetitive to those familiar with the themes discussed. However, these same features may make the volume an accessible introduction and overview for nutritionists who are otherwise unfamiliar with the diverse approaches that non-nutritionists take when studying the ‘inedible’.