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Oxford University Press · 2025

Food and Nutrition: What Everyone Needs to Know

by P.K. Newby, ScD, MPH, MS

Browse all 25 chapters from Food and Nutrition: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2025), organized across its six parts spanning nutrition science, food systems, sustainability, technology, plant-based diets, public health — and the future of food. Each chapter links to its own page with the (official) book abstract along with key themes and guiding questions to inform and inspire meaningful inquiry and discussion in classrooms and at dinner tables alike.

Three-dimensional cover of Food & Nutrition: What Everyone Needs to Know by P.K. Newby, second edition.

PREFACE.  Confused About What to Eat for Good Health and a Green Planet? The Truth is Out There.

Part I: Introduction to the State of Food, Nutrition, and the Environment

  1. Setting the Stage: Who Grows Food, What are We Eating, and Why is Science So Important?
  2. Diet and Disease: New and Continuing Public Health Threats
  3. Big Food Costs: Environmental Damage, Resource Depletion, and Climate Change

Part II: Dining Throughout Human History: Science, Technology, Eater, Environment

  1. How Revolutions, Discoveries, and Inventions Shape our Diets: Paleo to Present
  2. Contemporary Food Production: Eating Local to Ultra-Processed Foods
  3. Pop Nutrition and Buzzwords: Sorting Science-Based Evidence From Misinformation
  4. Taste, Cost, and Culture: Cooking and Eating in Today’s Food Environment

Part III: Nutrition 101: Essential Chemical Building Blocks, Ecological Context

  1. Water: Hydration, Fluoridation, and Plastic Contamination
  2. Vitamins, Minerals, and Phytonutrients: Are You Getting Enough?
  3. Crash Course on Carbohydrates, Sugar, and Fiber
  4. On Fats: Fiction, Facts, and Environmental Impacts
  5. All About Protein: Animal, Plant, and Are You Sure You Need More?
  6. Alcohol and Drinking: Heart-Healthy or Cancer Risk Factor?

Part IV: Food, Glorious Food: The Powers and Pleasures of Plant-Based Diets

  1. Spilling the Beans on Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate
  2. Vegetables and Fruits: Devour the Rainbow
  3. Whole Grains, Refined Grains, and Gluten-Free Diets
  4. Nuts, Beans, and a Shout-out to Soy

Part V: All about Animal Foods: Megafactory Farm to Fork

  1. Making the Meat You Eat: There’s Nothing Natural About It
  2. Meat and eggs: Are some choices better than others?
  3. Milk, Dairy, and Yogurt: Nutritional Benefits and Risks
  4. Fishy Matters: Wild-Caught, Farmed, and Health Considerations

Part VI: The Food Revolution: Creating Healthy and Sustainable Diets for All

  1. Solving Food and Nutrition Problems: Strategies, Goals, and Gaps
  2. Best Evidence for Losing Weight and Living Longer
  3. Step Up Your Food Game and Stay in the Know
  4. The Intertwined Future of Food and Nutrition

Notes · Selected References · Index

Download Complete Bibliography (176 pages)

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Dr. P.K. Newby

Founder and CEO Dr. P.K. Newby is a Harvard- and Columbia-trained nutrition scientist and author of Food & Nutrition: What Everyone Needs to Know. She writes Food Truth, Unfiltered, a free newsletter on Substack.

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