Greek Diet

Diaitia (Greek, diet) means what Raymond Williams means by culture: “a whole way of life.” It's why T.S. Eliot includes cabbage in the list of things that make up English culture. And it's a great way of thinking about food, rather than the highly focused, reified, mechanical and spectacular ways we usually think about it. All the thoughts about veganism today made me think about this term again, which I haven't done for over fifteen years.

Diaitia has to do with moderation, which the medieval Arabic metaphysicians ran with, in their adaptation of Greek philosophy. The term almost means “throughput“—dia means through and the aitia part has to do with movement or journey or life. What you put through your alimentary tract but also how you travel down the road. Is it just me seeing an algorithmic quality to this? Paging Robert Jackson.