Examines the social and cultural reasons for our food choices and provides an explanation of the nutritional reasons why humans eat what they do, resulting in a unique cultural and biological approach to the topic. The author explains the economies of food in the globalization era and food's relationship to religion, medicine, and ethnicity. He offers suggestions on how to end hunger, starvation, and malnutrition. The book explains the ways that cultures, biology, and political systems structure the edible environment.-- From publisher's description.

1. Obligatory omnivores -- 2. Human nutritional needs -- 3. More needs than one -- 4. The senses: taste, smell, and the adapted mind -- 5. Basics: environment and economy -- 6. Food and traditional medicine -- 7. Food as pleasure -- 8. Food classification and communication -- 9. Me, myself, and the others: food as social marker -- 10. Food and religion -- 11. Change -- 12. Foods and borders: ethnicities, cuisines, and boundary crossings -- 13. Feeding the world.