title: Food or medicine? The food-medicine interface in households in Sylhet.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Bangladesh has a rich traditional plant-medicine use, drawing on Ayurveda and Unami medicine. How these practices translate into people׳s homes and lives vary. Furthermore, the overlap between food and medicine is blurred and context-specific. This paper explores the food-medicine interface as experienced by Bengali women in their homes, in the context of transnational and generational changes.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim is to explore the overlap of food and medicines in homes of Bengali women in Sylhet. The objectives are to explore the influences on medicinal plant practice and to scrutinise how catagories of food and medicine are decided.
  
  
  METHODS
  The paper draws on in-depth ethnographic research conducted in Sylhet, North-east Bangladesh as part of a wider project looking at food and medicine use among Bengali women in both the UK and Bangladesh. Methods included participant observation, unstructured interviews and semi-structured interviews with a total of thirty women.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The study indicates that the use of plants as food and medicine is common among Bengali women in Sylhet. What is consumed as a food and/or a medicine varies between individuals, generations and families. The use and perceptions of food-medicines is also dependent on multiple factors such as age, education and availability of both plants and biomedicine. Where a plant may fall on the food-medicine spectrum depends on a range of factors including its purpose, consistency and taste.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Previous academic research has concentrated on the nutritional and pharmacological properties of culturally constructed food-medicines (Etkin and Ross, 1982; Owen and Johns, 2002, Pieroni and Quave, 2006). However, our findings indicate a contextualisation of the food-plant spectrum based on both local beliefs and wider structural factors, and thus not necessarily characteristics intrinsic to the products׳ pharmacological or nutritional properties. The implications of this research are of both academic relevance and practical importance to informing health services.
authors.affiliation: Research Cluster Biodiversity and Medicine/Centre for Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy, UCL School of Pharmacy, University of London, 29-39 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AX, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Hannah Maria
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Jennings
authors.affiliation: College of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Wales SA2 8PP, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Joy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Merrell
authors.affiliation: University of Birmingham, School of Sport, Exercise & Rehabilitation Sciences, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Janice L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: Research Cluster Biodiversity and Medicine/Centre for Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy, UCL School of Pharmacy, University of London, 29-39 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AX, United Kingdom. Electronic address: m.heinrich@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heinrich
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001459:Bangladesh; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D006801:Humans; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D008875:Middle Aged; D010946:Plants, Medicinal; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Bangladesh; Ethnography; Food–medicine; Health beliefs; Health practices