Book Overview

This chapter introduces the book’s goal to drive urgent conversations on critical food and nutrition issues pertinent to everyday eaters (and students of food-related disciplines), from farm to fork and far beyond. It discusses contemporary farming and food production, highlighting the roles of Big Food, Big Ag, and factory farming in today’s agrifood systems—and the roles women, children, forced labor, and immigrants play. It contrasts traditional plant-based diets with meat-centric Western diets filled with ultra-processed foods (UPFs). It clarifies that nutrition is a science based in biochemistry, utilizing the scientific method to understand how diet impacts health, disease, sustainability, and well-being. It introduces the nutritional ecology framework (health, environment, economy, and society) and the importance of dietary patterns rather than individual nutrients in creating healthy, sustainable diets. And food is so much more than medicine; our diets are a source of pleasure, celebration, and culture, central to the human experience.

This chapter explores diet and disease around the world, emphasizing communicable diseases like obesity, diabetes, stroke, cancer, and heart disease, as well as hunger, food insecurity, micronutrient deficiencies, and infectious diseases. It highlights that hunger stems from poverty, political instability, and environmental factors, exacerbated by climate change. Undernutrition weakens immunity and increases vulnerability to infectious diseases and increased during COVID-19 due to food insecurity. Shifts towards Western diets drive overnutrition, leading to obesity and other chronic diseases. Billions face a double burden of malnutrition, where hunger and infectious diseases (overnutrition) coexist alongside obesity and preventable chronic diseases (undernutrition). The chapter discusses how unclean water and unsafe food practices increase foodborne illness and examines whether diet can prevent or cure COVID-19. It notes the Top 10 causes of death and disability worldwide—heart disease is number one—while introducing the importance of healthy, plant-based diets in preventing diet-related diseases.

This chapter examines the major challenges, environmental impacts, and sustainability of today’s global agrifood system, including conventional (industrial) agriculture, commercial fishing, and food waste. It discusses how agriculture causes climate change while being shaped by its effects, as warmer temperatures and unstable weather like droughts and floods impact crop productivity and nutrient composition, threatening global food security. It describes how livestock production and factory farms (to make meat, dairy, and eggs) and the agrifood system drive deforestation, emitting greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, contributing to global warming. It examines water, fertilizers, and pesticides in food production and their relation to dead zones, pollution, soil degradation, and climate change. It scrutinizes the commercial fishing industry, sharing how overfishing and bycatch have diminished biodiversity and disrupted ocean ecosystems. The chapter closes on food waste and food loss, including its magnitude, causes, and impact on climate change and the environment.

This chapter examines how scientific revolutions, discoveries, and technological inventions shape human diets and impact the environment, from the Paleolithic Era to the present, highlighting how we access, prepare, and consume food. It illustrates that Stone Age hunter-gatherers were largely vegetarians who consumed a plant-based diet and scavenged animals. Sapiens began growing crops and raising animals during the Neolithic Revolution (birth of agriculture), resulting in poorer diets and social inequalities. Farming was mechanized during the Industrial Revolution; intensive chemical practices enhanced crop growth, while selective breeding increased yields, the hallmarks of the Green Revolution. It explores seminal science and technology breakthroughs, including the human genome (Genetic Revolution), computing (Digital Revolution and Information Age), and now artificial intelligence (AI), that continuously transform food access, shopping, cooking, and eating. Finally, it highlights the top 20 food and drink inventions, musing when genetic engineering (GMOs) and artificial intelligence (AI) will join the list.

This chapter examines how food processing impacts human health, the environment, and sustainability, addressing traditional and contemporary preservation methods and techniques, like fermentation, canned foods, and frozen foods. and plant-based meat. It compares conventional with organic agriculture and frozen and canned foods with fresh and exposes misinformation about eating local (food miles) and dietary carbon footprint, emphasizing the scientific consensus to consume more vegetables and fruit and other plant foods for best health. It highlights the preponderance of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in Western diets, often plastic-packaged with high levels of sugar, salt, fat, and calories that contribute to obesity and chronic diseases. Yet many nutrient-dense UPFs—like fortified cereals and plant-based meat—offer health benefits, underscoring the importance of balance and moderation to create healthy, sustainable diets. Finally, it examines genetic engineering in food production, combating disinformation about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that undermines their role in sustainability and food security.

This chapter views popular diet fads and social media trends with a nutrition science lens, including clean eating and natural and raw foods that carry a health halo but distract from the major nutrition culprits that increase chronic diseases, like sugar, salt, and saturated fat. It highlights plant-based diets (a.k.a., plant-rich, plant-forward, flexitarian, semi-vegetarian, and vegan), noting the broad scientific consensus on the significant benefits on health, sustainability, chronic disease prevention, and climate change rooted in nutrition and environmental science. It combats disinformation about plant-based meat by illustrating the lower carbon and water footprints compared to animal meat alongside higher nutritional content, sharing how these ultra-processed foods (UPFs) fit into a healthy, sustainable diet. The chapter examines the microbiome, revealing the role of probiotics and prebiotics and plant-based diets that foster good bacteria and prevent disease, closing on the importance of breastfeeding as the fundamental first step in human health and longevity.

This chapter examines how social, biological, and economic factors intersect with the food environment to influence dietary choices. Taste is the main factor in wealthy countries, which is based on genes and early diet—and food marketing and advertising. Other variables include cost, health, convenience, environmental sustainability, climate change, and animal welfare. The agrifood system (Big Food, Big Ag), food industry, food policy, and trade comprise the global food environment, while culture, tradition, and social norms (gender roles, women’s rights) shape how sapiens cook and eat. It explores whether fast food and food deserts cause obesity and how COVID-19, geopolitical conflicts and wars, and bird flu combine with corporate greed to drive high food prices that make healthy eating unaffordable. The chapter highlights contemporary dining, like street food, fast food, and food trucks, amid the fall of cooking and eating three meals daily and the rise of snacking—and girl dinner.

This chapter explores the role of water in human nutrition, public health, and environmental sustainability. It explains why water is an essential nutrient and highlights its role in health and kidney disease while dispelling hydration myths. The chapter reveals global disparities in tap water quality, which varies by socioeconomic and geographic factors, and examines the role of fluoride and fluoridation in dental cavities. It describes the rise of plastics in food containers and critiques designer bottled water, highlighting the roles of BPA, forever chemicals (PFAS), and fossil fuels used in plastic production that contribute to health risks, air pollution, and climate change. While many plastics are recyclable, the chapter reveals that most end up in the ocean, where they compromise wildlife and threaten biodiversity; microplastics also end up on human plates (and in human bodies and brains), emphasizing the need to reduce plastic production and consumption to protect public health and the environment.

This chapter examines the essential roles vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals (phytonutrients) play in human health, nutrition, and disease. The chapter highlights sodium and other minerals in hypertension, as well as the DASH diet, and examines the scientific evidence on vitamin C, zinc, and the common cold. It reveals widespread vitamin D deficiency, which may contribute to a range of health conditions beyond bone fractures and osteoporosis. The chapter explores phytochemicals—bioactive compounds found in plants—and discusses four major categories (polyphenols, carotenoids, phytoestrogens, and glucosinolates), emphasizing their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting effects that combat disease. While a healthy, balanced diet meets micronutrient needs, vitamin and mineral deficiencies arise even in wealthy populations; supplements can fill nutrient gaps, although whole foods offer additional health advantages. Finally, the chapter explains the complexity of nutrition science, advocating for a holistic dietary pattern approach over reductionist strategies that isolate single nutrients and individual foods.

This chapter examines the roles of carbohydrates, sugars, starch, and fiber in the body and explains their differing chemical compositions, dietary sources, and metabolisms. It explains the importance of fiber and resistant starch, particularly for the gastrointestinal system and microbiome (gut health). The chapter highlights how added sugars increase risks of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and dental decay and explores whether sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), ultra-processed foods (UPFs), and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are to blame. It emphasizes that all added sugars compromise health, not just HFCS, and most people eat too much. Sugar-free and low-calorie sweeteners in diet soda and artificial sweeteners like aspartame and saccharin may have long-term metabolic effects, with mixed results on obesity, chronic disease, and cancer. The chapter closes by considering whether sugar is as addictive as cocaine or opiates, emphasizing moderation in creating healthy diets by decreasing sugar, increasing fiber, and making science-based dietary choices.

This chapter examines dietary fats and oils, explaining the biochemical differences between saturated, unsaturated, polyunsaturated, and trans fat and their impacts on development, obesity, and chronic diseases. It discusses the role of low-fat foods in a healthy diet and debunks misinformation on coconut oil, medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), and obesity. It discusses whether dietary cholesterol directly raises blood cholesterol and causes heart disease, revealing that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats improves cardiovascular health while industrial trans fats increase heart disease. It explores essential fatty acids (EFAs), omega-3s, and omega-6 fatty acids, highlighting the low intakes but critical role of omega-3s EPA and DHA in brain and eye health—and high omega-6 intakes in Western diets may contribute to chronic diseases. The chapter draws attention to the ubiquitous role of palm oil in diets around the world and describes environmental and ethical issues, including deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change, and environmental degradation.

This chapter explores the special role of protein and amino acids in the human body. It describes how protein is the only macronutrient with nitrogen, and it is continuously broken down and synthesized to meet physiological demands from the body’s pool of amino acids. The chapter discusses essential and nonessential amino acids and reviews whether “complete” proteins are required at every meal. The chapter combats nutrition disinformation, including the superiority of animal over plant proteins for health and the overstated role of high-protein diets on weight loss and obesity. It critiques current protein recommendations, which vary based on age, physical activity, and health status, while clarifying that most humans are eating far too much and favoring animal proteins over healthy and sustainable plant proteins. The chapter closes on collagen, a skin-boosting protein that’s gotten a lot of hype for its anti-aging promises—but does it really work?

This chapter explores alcohol’s effects on human health, chronic disease, mental health, and well-being. It explains how drinking habits vary by culture, religion, socioeconomic status, and social norms, noting the rise of binge and solo drinking in the US. The chapter describes alcohol’s immediate and long-term effects on the brain and body. It highlights alcohol’s pleasurable effects while describing its potential for addiction, depression, cardiovascular disease, and many cancers, particularly breast cancer and colorectal cancer. It evaluates the French Paradox, which shows lower heart disease in France and Japan compared to the US, thought to be attributable to red wine and its phytochemical resveratrol, also found in Japanese tea. Finally, it compares the nutritional differences between wine, beer, cocktails, and spirits while underscoring that no level of alcohol consumption is risk-free due to its toxic by-product acetaldehyde, despite the clear social benefits light and moderate drinking provides in some cultures.

This chapter examines coffee, tea, and chocolate, including their nutritional benefits, health effects, and use in both traditional cultures and today’s world. Coffee is the world’s primary source of caffeine and may raise LDL (bad) cholesterol, a risk factor for heart disease, but coffee and caffeine have also been associated with less depression and improved cardiovascular health. Like coffee, tea is rich in phytochemicals, with similar benefits for blood pressure, blood sugar, cognition, and brain health. It highlights the powerful polyphenols, antioxidants, and phytonutrients found in green tea, kombucha, yerba maté, and matcha and explores the medicinal use of drinking chocolate and its rich polyphenols and antioxidants, noting that added sugar and milk reduce its value. Finally, the chapter considers the ecological impacts of coffee, tea, and chocolate production, including deforestation, environmental sustainability, biodiversity loss, monoculture, climate change, and the use of child and forced labor in the chocolate industry.

This chapter examines the evidence surrounding the role of vegetables and fruits in health, longevity, chronic disease prevention, and mental health while addressing misinformation related to fruit juice and obesity as well as juicing, juice cleanses, and so-called detox regimens. It outlines the major categories of vegetables (dark green, red-orange, cruciferous, starchy, allium, and seaweed) and fruits (citrus, berries, melons, cored, stone, and tropical), emphasizing their distinct vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. It discusses herbs and spices at the heart of traditional medicine practices in China and India, which deliver antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral effects, and are now studied in Western nutrition science. It highlights superfoods like seaweed, broccoli, blueberries, cranberries, and leafy greens due to their high phytonutrient content, including polyphenols and carotenoids. Finally, it considers whether freshly pressed fruit juices and smoothies may be part of a healthy and sustainable diet, emphasizing choosing nutrient-dense varieties while minimizing food waste.

This chapter examines the role of whole grains and refined grains in health, longevity, and chronic disease prevention and describes the nutrient composition of grains and pseudograins—wheat, corn, oats, rice, amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa—and their significance as dietary staples. It explains how food processing removes fiber and micronutrients from whole grains, and most people don’t eat enough. The chapter highlights the beneficial role of oats in lowering LDL cholesterol, in part due to beta-glucan. It discusses wheat, gluten, and gluten-related disorders like Celiac disease and wheat allergy and combats misinformation about gluten-free diets, explaining the role of FODMAPs and amylase-trypsin inhibitors (ATIs). It discusses the benefits of whole grains over refined grains, which boost blood sugar and contribute to heart disease and diabetes when part of a Western diet filled with ultra-processed foods (UPFs). It concludes with tips for identifying whole grains, including reading food labels and ingredients.

This chapter examines the nutritional composition of beans, peas, and lentils (legumes) as well as nuts, seeds, and pulses, noting their vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients (like polyphenols) while explaining that most humans do not eat enough for optimal health and longevity. It describes the role of legumes in sustainable farming due to nitrogen fixation, which enriches soil and reduces the need for synthetic fertilizers, critical in regenerative agriculture. It reveals how legumes, nuts, and seeds impact weight, obesity, cardiovascular health, diabetes, cancer, longevity, and heart disease, particularly when part of a plant-based diet. It highlights soybeans and tofu, emphasizing their complete protein profile and phytoestrogens (isoflavones) while combating misinformation about their role in breast cancer and illustrating their beneficial role in longevity in the Blue Zones and traditional Japanese diets. Finally, it discusses why beans produce gas (and how to prevent it) and reviews the science on peanut allergies.

This chapter examines animal foods in human diets, (chicken, pork, beef, goat, insects), specifically conventional (industrial) meat produced in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and their role in planetary health, sustainability, climate change, and society. It posits that meat is the ultimate ultra-processed food (UPF). Globally, 92 billion animals are slaughtered annually, packed into factory and megafactory farms and fed antibiotics and hormones to produce protein and meat efficiently, cheaply, and inhumanely. CAFOs fuel antibiotic resistance (antimicrobial resistance; AMR), a growing public health threat, while endangering meatpackers. It describes greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) from deforestation and methane production due to manure lagoons alongside land use, fuel, and water costs—plus air, soil, and water pollution that disproportionately impacts BIPOC communities. It concludes with the “chickenization” of our species, the Earth encrusted with poultry bones, sharing anthropological evidence that sapiens in the Anthropocene are living in the Age of the Chicken.

This chapter explores the high intakes of animal foods like beef, pork, chicken, and eggs in Western diets, highlighting their protein, micronutrients, saturated fat, and heme iron alongside the sodium (salt), preservatives, and carcinogens found in processed meats. It illustrates the health risks of red and processed meats, including heart disease, stroke, and colorectal (colon) cancer. It addresses misinformation regarding the nutritional benefits and sustainability of grass-fed versus grain-fed beef, clarifying that both have a high carbon and water footprint and contribute to climate change. It assesses the egg and blood cholesterol (high LDL) connection, reminding us that some may be sensitive to dietary cholesterol from egg yolks. Finally, it examines eggs (cage-free, free-range, pasture-raised, regenerative agriculture, organic), noting the role of bird (avian) flu on egg prices and urging eaters to read labels to understand environmental sustainability and ethical concerns in egg and meat production (and ditch the jerky).

This chapter examines the nutritional benefits and health risks of milk and dairy consumption, highlighting fermented foods like yogurt and cheese. It explains that humans are the only species to drink another animal’s milk, yet most sapiens are lactose intolerant. It notes that milk’s calcium is critical to building strong bones but challenges its role in osteoporosis and fractures. It discusses that reduced-fat and nonfat dairy can be part of a heart-healthy diet, whereas full-fat and high-sugar foods (whole milk, ice cream, sugar-sweetened yogurts) in a Western dietary pattern (Standard American Diet) can increase chronic disease; some studies also link milk with hormone-sensitive cancers. It shares the science on yogurt, a fermented food with live bacteria (probiotics) that improves the microbiome and gut health. Finally, it considers whether cheese is the key to the French Paradox, emphasizing the importance of the whole dietary pattern on health, sustainability, and disease prevention.

This chapter examines fish and seafood through a nutrition ecology framework (health, environment, society, economy), exploring global fish consumption and its importance in nutrition, food security, sustainability, and development. It compares wild-caught fish with farmed (aquaculture), highlighting Atlantic salmon and shrimp, illustrating that overfishing and bycatch threaten ecosystems and biodiversity and have driven some species to near extinction. While aquaculture meets eaters’ demands and provides livelihoods, sustainability practices vary, analogous to terrestrial agriculture (e.g., water pollution, antibiotics, sea lice, and animal suffering). Seafood contamination from mercury and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and forever chemicals in the ocean can pose risks, but they are outweighed by health benefits, and omega-3s EPA and DHA are critical for pregnant women and children for optimal eye and brain development. A dietary pattern including fish can be part of a heart-healthy diet, especially when replacing red meat; sustainable seafood guides inform environmentally sound, eco-conscious choices.

This chapter examines efforts to solve food, nutrition, and farming challenges in the global agrifood system, highlighting the global failure to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to curb climate change amid increasing food insecurity, hunger, and diet-related diseases. It discusses local, national, and global approaches, including fortification and biofortification (genetic engineering); policy and regulation; nutrition programs and education; and diet guidelines and recommendations. It defines the principles of healthy, sustainable diets, noting agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and technological advances (e.g., precision agriculture, artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology, robots, drones, and the Internet of Things (IoT)) that have transformed farming in the Fourth Industrial (Agricultural) Revolution (4AR). It explores food waste solutions, emphasizing the reduce-reuse-recycle framework within a circular economy that feeds hungry people. It stresses the importance of an ecotechno future and multilevel interventions, local to global, to create healthy, sustainable food systems that shift sapiens as a species to plant-based diets.

This chapter examines the best evidence for weight loss, chronic disease prevention, and longevity. It shares science-based consensus and dietary advice on how to lose weight, prevent a heart attack, control appetite, and live longer, highlighting the role of a plant-based diet. It defines healthy and sustainable eating, including reducing ultra-processed foods (UPFs), refined grains, sugar, and salt; increasing whole grains, beans, nuts, and legumes; and limiting (or avoiding) meat and dairy. It discusses weight loss diets (Paleo, high-protein, WW, low-fat, Whole Foods Plant Based [WFPB], meal replacements), reminding that appetite and calories are key—alongside finding a diet you can stick to. It explores the five Blue Zones, the world’s longest-lived populations who consume diverse plant-based diets within their unique culinary traditions. It closes on caloric restriction (and calorie-restriction mimetics) in longevity and considers scientific and technological innovations like digital upload, artificial intelligence—or even a “god pill.”

Food and nutrition confusion is epidemic, a result of misinformation, disinformation, and science denialism; industry influence, political bias, and flawed research dissemination contribute to the diet infodemic. While there is strong scientific consensus on core diet principles and advice, social media anecdotes and sensationalist media headlines make it difficult for eaters to recognize evidence-based recommendations. It examines successful strategies for making dietary changes, including taste adaptation and the importance of pleasure, plus social support, nudges, moderation, indulgence, and mindful eating. (Healthy hedonism!) It focuses on food, mood, and mental health, highlighting adaptogens like herbs, spices, mushrooms, and polyphenols (phytonutrients). Both the fungus kingdom and intermittent fasting get a shout out, highlighting their roles in health, well-being, and longevity. It closes with how-to tips for identifying food and nutrition facts, urging readers to question sources, recognize hyped claims, and look to scientists and experts—and ignore disinformation-filled anti-science propaganda and quackery.

This chapter explores existential questions surrounding food, science, technology, and social evolution, examining the current and future landscape of food production and human diets. It traces paradigm shifts in nutrition, single nutrients, and scientific reductionism to dietary patterns to nutritional ecology. It discusses food as a weapon and human right, questioning whether we need more in 2050. It highlights Fourth Agricultural Revolution (4AR) technologies (vertical farming, AI, robots, alternative proteins, plant-based meat, molecular coffee, and chocolate, cultivated meat, air protein) and contrasts personalized with public health nutrition. It contemplates whether humans will continue toward environmental decimation and widespread antibiotic resistance (i.e., agshittification), urging a plant-based food revolution to cut chronic disease, curb climate change, and evolve beyond the Age of the Chicken, envisioning an ecotechno future without enslaving animals in factory farms based on science, technology, and human innovation that prioritizes public health to create a healthy, sustainable food future.