The Quest for Food: A Natural History of Eating

ISBN-13: 9780387303345 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 866 str.

Harald Brussow

Opis

When you go into a scientific library or look through the catalogues of scientific publishers, you will quickly find books from food scientists, food technologists, food chemists, food microbiologists, and food toxicologists. Agronomists, nut- tionists, and physicians have written on food, and last but not least cooks. What I missed was a book on food written from the perspective of a biologist. When Susan Safren, the food science editor from Springer Science ] Business Media, LLC, invited me to write a book, I decided that I would write this book on food biology. What I had in mind was a survey on eating through space and time in a very fundamental way, but not in the format of a systematic textbook. The present book is more of an ordered collection of scientific essays. Contents.In Chapter 1, I start with a prehistoric Venus to explore the relationship between sex and food. Then I use another lady Europe to inv- tigate the strong links between food and culture. I then ask what is eating in a very basic but simple physicochemical sense. In Chapters 2 and 3, I embark on a biochemistry-oriented travel following the path of a food molecule through the central carbon pathway until it is decomposed into CO and H O and a lot 2 2 of ATP. My account does not intend to teach biochemistry, but to use recent research articles from major scientific journals to look behind food biochemistry."

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"Brüssow ... has written an interesting collection of scientific essays about the biological and evolutionary history of eating. The Quest for Food is organized in broad chapters with numerous subchapters. ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." (S. C. Hardesty, CHOICE, Vol. v4 (3), November, 2007)

Spis treści

A Nutritional Conditio Humana.- Some Aspects of Nutritional Biochemistry.- Bioenergetics.- The Evolution of Eating Systems.- The Ecology of Eating Systems.- Eating Cultures.- We as Food and Feeders.- An Agro(-Eco)nomical Outlook: Feeding the Billions.

O autorze

Harald Brüssow is a Senior Research Scientist in Nestle Research Centre's Nutrition and Health Department in Lausanne, Switzerland. He received his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry at Martinsried, Germany and served on the editorial board of two journals published by the American Society for Microbiology.

Blurb

The Quest for Food: A Natural History of Eating is a collection of essays that surveys eating through time, from the perspective of a biologist.

The quest begins in prehistoric times with religion and the exploration of the connection between food and sex. This leads to an investigation of the deep links between food and culture, exploring the basic question of "what is eating?" The second section embarks on a biochemistry-oriented journey tracing the path of a food molecule through the central carbon pathway until it is decomposed into CO₂, H₂O and ATP. The third section delves into the evolution of eating systems, beginning with the elements of the primordial soup through the birth of single cell organisms such as bacteria and archea. We then follow this evolution in the fourth section through higher developed organisms: from the first organisms in the ocean to the ones on land. The next two sections explore the stories of food from an ecological, then behavioral viewpoint, leading the reader from animals to early hominids, and into human history. The final section takes apart an anthropocentric view of the world by presenting man as prey for the oldest predators: microbes. The text closes with an agronomical outlook on how to feed the billions.

The goal of The Quest for Food is to catalyze discussions between scientists working in food science, and those in biological and biomedical research.

 

About the Author:

Harald Brüssow is a Senior Research Scientist at Nestle Research Centre's Nutritional Health Department, in Lausanne, Switzerland.