As we face today's excess of confusing and often contradictory advice on diet and wellness, Daniel E. Lieberman--bestselling author of The Story of the Human Body and Exercised, and founding chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University--gives us a brilliant, no-nonsense book, at once fresh, entertaining, informative, and compassionate, to help us answer a question we never evolved to ask but now must consider several times a day: what should we eat, and why?
About the Author: DANIEL E. LIEBERMAN is a paleoanthropologist at Harvard University, where he is the Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences and former chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology.
416 Pages
Health + Wellness, Diet & Nutrition
Description
Book Synopsis
As we face today's excess of confusing and often contradictory advice on diet and wellness, Daniel E. Lieberman--bestselling author of The Story of the Human Body and Exercised, and founding chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University--gives us a brilliant, no-nonsense book, at once fresh, entertaining, informative, and compassionate, to help us answer a question we never evolved to ask but now must consider several times a day: what should we eat, and why?
Contrary to widespread claims, Lieberman argues, there can be no simple, definitive answer. Using lines of evidence from evolutionary biology, physiology, anthropology, anatomy, medical science, and history, Lieberman examines, with brio and wit, the history and health effects of food from before the invention of cooking up to today's industrially produced diets. He shows how we evolved to eat almost anything, and by evaluating and trying many of these diets (raw food, Paleo, Mediterranean, Blue Zone, intermittent fasting, Atkins, DASH), he helps you understand why none is definitive, and some are better than others.
Lieberman explores the costs and benefits of cheap, energy-rich, tempting, and often unhealthy ultra-processed foods; the tangled roots of weight gain; how diet influences obesity, heart disease, and cancer; and the claims of benefits offered by high- and low-fat diets, meal replacements, intermittent fasting, carnivorism, vegetarianism, and veganism--while showing how over centuries most cultures evolved ingenious ways to grow and cook healthy, delicious food.
This fascinating and entertaining science-based book on nutrition, digestion, and health will teach you how to be well fed instead of fed up with dietary hucksterism.
About the Author
DANIEL E. LIEBERMAN is a paleoanthropologist at Harvard University, where he is the Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences and former chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. He is best known for his research on the evolution of the human body and its relevance to health.
Dimensions (Overall): 9.25 Inches (H) x 6.13 Inches (W) x 1.09 Inches (D)
Weight: 1.42 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Number of Pages: 416
Genre: Health + Wellness
Sub-Genre: Diet & Nutrition
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Theme: Diets
Format: Hardcover
Author: Daniel E Lieberman
Language: English
Street Date: August 11, 2026
TCIN: 1003381507
UPC: 9780593537992
Item Number (DPCI): 247-49-3546
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
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Estimated ship dimensions: 1.09 inches length x 6.13 inches width x 9.25 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 1.42 pounds
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