The Universality of Food

As you travel around the world, you will find people living very different lives from each other. However, there is one thing that everybody has in common. Everybody eats. Anywhere you go, food will reflect culture, diet, and heritage. Particular foods acquired or purchased by families around the world reflect their traditions. They also reflect conditions in a particular area since food access depends on soil, trade, poverty, and conflict.

Everybody needs food to survive, and diets reflect how well an individual survives. In this book, the authors travel around the world showing how dinner unites us all. The authors also show how food and diet have evolved over time in nearly every region. As food choices change, health also changes around the world. For the first time, overeating is causing almost as much trouble as suffering from a lack of food.

Globalization changes the...