100 Million Years of Food

What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today

by Stephen Le

On Sale: 01/31/2017

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: 01/31/2017

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 Writer Award, the Taste Canada Award and the Lane Anderson Prize

There are few areas of modern life that offer as much contradictory information and prescriptive advice 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; and on and on it goes.

Cutting through the confusing mass of information to present the long view of our diet and its relationship to what we eat, Stephen Le takes readers on a historic and geographic tour of how cuisine has evolved in tandem with our particular environments, and how our ancestors took advantage of the resources available to them. 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 the mass-produced assembly lines dependent on chemicals we see so often today.

In 100 Million Years of Food, Stephen Le argues that our ancestral diets and lifestyles are the first line of defense in protecting our health; simple prescriptions like paleo or vegan diets highjack our biology and ignore evolution, resulting in the current explosion of chronic diseases and allergies. In this remarkably clear-cut and compelling book, readers are shown not just what to eat, but how their diet is shaped from the product of millions of years of evolution.

Critical Praise

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

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Resources

Product Details

  • ISBN: 9781443431774
  • ISBN 10: 144343177X
  • Imprint: Harper Perennial
  • On Sale: 01/31/2017
  • Pages: 320
  • List Price:18.99 CAD
  • BISAC1 : SCIENCE / General

100 Million Years of Food by Stephen Le

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