100 Million Years Of Food

What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today

by Stephen Le

On Sale: 02/02/2016

100 Million Years Of Food

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100 Million Years Of Food

What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today

by Stephen Le

On Sale: 02/02/2016

Format:

Taste Canada Award

KOBO Emerging Writer Prize

Lane Anderson Award

About the Book

In the vein of Jared Diamond and Michael Pollan, a fascinating new exploration of what we eat and how we live, and the health consequences of denying our complicated evolutionary history with food.

Finalist for the Kobo Emerging Writers Award

There are few areas of modern life that offer as much information and prescriptive advice, often contradictory, as the arena of diet and health: eat a lot of meat, abstain from meat; whole-grains are healthy, whole-grains are a disaster; get a lot of sunlight, sunlight causes skin cancer; eat everything in moderation but increase your exercise; eat as much as you want but concentrate on your metabolism, and on it goes. Biological anthropoligist Stephen Le cuts through the confusing mass of information to present the long view of our diet and relationship to what we eat.

In One Hundred Million Years of Food, Le takes readers on a historic and geographic tour of how different cuisines have evolved in tandem with our particular environments, as our ancestors took advantage of the resources and food available to them. Like his mentor Jared Diamond, Le 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.

In One Hundred Million Years of Food, Stephen Le argues that our ancestral diets and lifestyles are the best first line of defense in protecting our health; simple prescriptions like paleo or vegan diets in effect highjack our biology and ignore evolution, resulting in the current explosion of chronic diseases and allergies. To put it simply, the optimal diet is to eat what your ancestors ate. In this remarkably clear-cut and compelling book, readers are shown not just what to eat, but how their diet is the product of millions of years of evolution.

Critical Praise

“The vastness, breadth, and ambitiousness of Stephen Le’s 100 Million Years of Food makes it compelling and engaging.” - Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt and Cod

[100 Million Years of Food] could constitute a paradigm shift regarding how we view food. - The Globe and Mail

“This deliciously entertaining book will help you to enjoy eating your food, to enjoy thinking about your food, and to stay healthy.” - Jared Diamond, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Times bestselling author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse

“Le mixes advice, personal anecdotes, and medical science in this fascinating food-for-thought narrative.” - Booklist

“Entertaining and assiduously referenced. . . . What you don’t understand about food and diet could fill a book. Biological anthropologist Stephen Le did just that, and what he has to say will almost certainly throw into question everything you think you know about healthy eating.” - Vancouver Sun

“The book’s conclusions about what to eat and drink are common sense, but the journey Le takes to get us there is worth the cover price.” - Kirkus Reviews

“A fascinating journey that comes to a few salient conclusions: primarily that we’d all be a lot better off if we ate like our great-great-great grandparents.” - National Post

Resources

Product Details

  • ISBN: 9781443431767
  • ISBN 10: 1443431761
  • Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
  • On Sale: 02/02/2016
  • Pages: 320
  • List Price:32.99 CAD
  • BISAC1 : SCIENCE / General

100 Million Years Of Food by Stephen Le

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