From Four Agent Soup to Functional Foods: Biographies of Chinese Herbs in Contemporary Taiwan (1990-2008)

• Main Authors: Chih-Chin An, 安勤之
• Other Authors: Sean Hsiang-lin LEI
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/50656078193074879813

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 社會學研究所 === 97 === This thesis concerns the contemporary transformation of Chinese herbs. It is an important development that functional foods have become one of the new forms of Chinese herbs in the contemporary Taiwan. In order to explain this phenomenon, I have taken the ‘biography approach of things” as the main methodology applied in this thesis, and chose the Four Agent Soup as the topic of my case study. I hereby presented three questions. First, what are the historical conditions which have made Chinese herbs transform and thus be categorized into the functional foods? Second, how, i.e., by what kind of life process and cultural attribution of a thing itself, does Chinese herbs become functional foods? Third, how does the Chinese medicine industry respond to the said transformation of Chinese herbs? Five conclusions have been reached after the research. First, the practice of everyday life is energetic to change the government institution. In the trend of becoming the functional foods, Chinese medicine as both drug and food triggered a controversy over the control of food and drug within the government authorities. The trend of the functional foods production also urged a revision of the Health Food Control Act. Second, the proponents and promoters of traditional Chinese medicine, such as the owners of Chinese medicine stores or factories, have adapted themselves to the trend of the functional foods. Third, the actors from different disciplines have brought their own habitus while commodifying the traditional Four Agent Soup , and therefore have endued these products with some characteristics of their own disciplines. For example, the food industry will change the image of the Four Agents Soup by advertisements, and improves the flavor and the aroma of it. In contrast, the traditional Chinese medicine industry will emphasize the curative effect due to their professional background in manufacturing drugs. Fourth, the functional foods may have more sophisticated classification between the two opposite poles of food and drug by their presentations. That is, if the presentation of the functional food is like tea bags, people will be inclined to deem it to be food. On the contrary, if it is designed as a tablet, it may be considered as drug. The drinkable functional foods may be considered as a combination of food and drug. Fifth, the duality of the Four Agents Soup as both the drug and the food makes the Four Agents Soup products able to move in-between the line of the drug and the food, so that the Four Agents Soup products may disguise as the medication to confuse the consumers. Keywords: functional food, both as drug and food, ambiguity, Chinese medicine industry, biography, material culture, commodity innovation, commodity evolution, four agents soup, four agents essence of chicken, four agents drink, food industry, Health Food Control Act.