What are the motifs in Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses by Isabel Allende?

Flesh vs spirit is a recurring idea. In her exploration of the relationship between the mind and the body in eroticism and cuisine, Allende discusses the Judeo-Christian division of "the individual into body and soul, and love into profane and divine" as a reason for the shunning of culinary and sensual pleasure in Western culture. After defining aphrodisiacs as "the bridge between gluttony and lust," the author argues that Christian condemnation of both aphrodisiacs and sensuality in general comes from the belief that "the road to gluttony leads straight to lust and, if traveled a little farther, to the loss of one's soul."