Food and the Body

This course will use an evolutionary perspective to focus on what humans need to eat for survival and health. We will examine how and why sufficient and optimal diets can be obtained through a range of dietary patterns, and how those patterns were rooted in different geographic and cultural regions.  We will also compare current patterns with those of humans from 200,000, 12,000 and 100 years ago, and where it is instructive, we will compare the food intake and food system of other animals.  Throughout the course, the environmental impact of a given dietary pattern will be considered, and where possible, the economic determinants of individual food intake will be reviewed. We will incorporate a lifespan perspective throughout the course.