Book Chapter: Decolonizing the Diet, bell hooks and Nutritional Liberation for "At Risk" Youths
 
Below is the forthcoming book chapter abstract for the book, bell hooks companion, SUNY press 2009. This book’s contents are being compiled by Dr. Sika Alaine Dagbovie and Dr. Nghana Lewis (Editors). The chapter, “Decolonizing the Diet: a bell hooks approach to nutritional liberation for ‘At Risk’ Youth” is written by me, Amie Breeze Harper.   Dr. Demas showed how putting the boys on a solely whole foods plant-based diet positively changed their behavior, improving their school grades and moods. This completely contradicts the stereotype of Black [and Latino boys] in America as “naturally aggressive and deviant”. Furthermore, her approach to the boys’ “behavioral problems” ties into hooks’ theories of decolonization, offering the boys a way to live a life that lowered their risk of entering the Prison Industrial Complex. Demas’ approach of addressing junk food as an addiction that creates people to act “junky”, parallels bell hooks’ concern about junk food in the Black community and it’s connections to addiction and addictive/destructive behavior. Lastly, using hooks, I will show that Demas’ work at Bay Point offers an alternative approach to analyzing young Black male/masculine behavior. I will address connections food potentially has to help create a more “balanced” and less aggressive model of masculinity in the Black community, as well as shedding light on how to take bell hooks’ philosophy of decolonization to the nutritional level. Dr. Antonia Demas was interviewed on the radio and discussed her work at Bay Point iwith the young men and veganism in the spring of 2006. She can be listened to here, Helping Troubled Teens with Veganism: The Link Between Food and Behavior: http://www.animalvoices.ca/shows/antonia_demas. -------- Endnotes [1] Hooks, bell. West, Cornel. Break Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life.Boston: South End Press. 1991. Page 98. [2] Hooks, bell. Black looks: race and representation: Boston: South End Press, 1992. Page 89.