100 Million Years of Food

An exploration of what we eat and how we live, and the health consequences of denying our complicated evolutionary history with food.

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There are few areas of modern life that offer as much information and advice, often contradictory, as diet and health: eat a lot of meat, don't eat meat; whole-grains are healthy, whole-grains are a disaster; and on it goes. Biological anthropologist Stephen Le cuts through the confusing mass of information to present the long view of our diet. Like his mentor Jared Diamond, he uses history and science to present a fascinating and wide-ranging tour of human history as viewed through what and how we eat. Travelling the world to places as far-flung as Vietnam, Kenya, Nova Scotia, and Iowa, Le visits people producing food using traditional methods as well as modern techniques, and looks at how our relationship to food has strayed from centuries of tradition, to mass-produced assembly lines dependent on chemicals that bring with them a host of problems.