Description
It may be a well-worn saying, but scientific data backs it up: You are what you eat. And not only that: You are what your earliest ancestors ate. In short, the story of humanity is inextricably linked to the foods we eat. Award-winning professor Alyssa Crittenden, Ph.D., provides a research-based approach to the history and science of the human diet, taking you far beyond the supermarket and laboratory. Understand our current — and future — relationship with food by looking back in time to the roots of food and food culture, and its intersection with science.
Overview
Syllabus
- Class Preview
- Paleo Diets & the Ancestral Appetite
- Our Hunter-Gatherer Past
- Stones, Bones & Teeth
- Did Meat Eating Make Us Human?
- Insects: The Other White Meat
- Was the Stone Age Menu Mostly Vegetarian?
- Cooking & the Control of Fire
- The Neolithic Revolution
- The Changing Disease-Scape
- How Foods Spread Around the World
- The History of the Spice Trade
- How Sugar & Sale Shaped World History
- A Brief History of Bread
- The Science & Secrets of Chocolate
- Water: The Liquid of Life
- Beer, Mead & the Fun of Fermentation
- Humanity's Love of Wine
- Coffee: Love or Addiction?
- The Roots of Tea
- The Fizz on Soda
- Food as Ritual
- When People Eat Things That Aren't Food
- Food as Recreational Drugs
- Food as Medicine
- The Coevolution of Genes & Diet
- The Scoop on Poop
- The Gut Microbiome
- Brain Food
- You Are What Your Mother Ate
- Civilization: Diets & Diseases
- What the World Is Eating
- The Overnutrition Epidemic
- World Poverty & Undernutrition
- Should the World Eat Meat?
- Should We Be Powered by Plants?
- The Future of Food
Taught by
Alyssa Crittenden
