Esperti di corpi, corpi di esperti: expertise e dietetica.

Abstract

Today, dietetics is sectoral, specialised. The cause, among others, is to be found in the emergence of so-called nutritionism, a paradigm that arose at the end of the the 19th century and established itself in the first half of the 20th century, which brings together discoveries from food science and the needs of the food industry, imposing the dominance of calories and so-called nutrients. This shifted the attention of scientists and ordinary people to the invisible substances that food contains on a chemical and physical level (vitamins, fats sugars, proteins, and the like), with a profound transformation the way in which we consider food: no longer just units and sensory units, made up of history and culture, but agglomerates of substances that are both imperceptible and quantifiable. Thus, the expert has become the one who knows how the the inner, hidden mechanisms of the human body. And also the dietetics, which used to be part of a practical, habitual, diffuse, has changed status and has slipped towards expertise specialised skills of a scientific nature.