Eugene N. Anderson Everyone Eats

Annotation

Everyone eats, but rarely do we ask why or investigate why we eat what we eat. Why do we love spices, sweets, coffee? How did rice become such a staple food throughout so much of eastern Asia? Everyone Eats examines the social and cultural reasons for our food choices and provides an explanation of the nutritional reasons for why humans must eat in order to survive, resulting in a unique cultural and biological approach to the topic. Anderson begins with the evolution of human nutritional needs, then moves on to discuss the economics of food in the globalization era, and also covers topics such as food's relationship to religion, medicine, and ethnicity. Anderson also covers issues related to production and consumption, offering suggestions on how to end hunger, starvation, and malnutrition. By providing an interesting and appetizing overview of food and foodways, Everyone Eats feeds our need to understand human ecology by explaining the ways that cultures and political systems structure the edible environment. Ultimately our understanding of food and human eating habits is enriched by this fascinating, unexpected, and lively account of why everyone must eat.