100 Million Years of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today

A fascinating tour through the evolution of the human diet and how we can improve our health by understanding our complicated history with food.

There are few areas of modern life that are burdened by as much information and advice, often contradictory, as our diet and health: eat a lot of meat, eat no meat; whole grains are healthy, whole grains are a disaster; eat everything in moderation; eat only certain foods--and on and on. In 100 Million Years of Food, biological anthropologist Stephen Le explains how cuisines of different cultures are a result of centuries of evolution, finely tuned to our biology and surroundings.

Today many cultures have strayed from their ancestral diets, relying instead on mass-produced food often made with chemicals that may be contributing to a rise in so-called Western diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and obesity.

Author: Stephen Le
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 02/02/2016
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.40w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781250050410

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2015
Library Journal 12/01/2015 pg. 121
Booklist 02/01/2016 pg. 7
Choice 10/01/2016

About the Author
Stephen Le is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa. He received a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2010 where he was a recipient of a UCLA Chancellor's Fellowship and a National Science Foundation grant for his fieldwork in Vietnam. 100 Million Years of Food is his first book.