Introduction

Everyone requires the same basic nutrients – proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals – yet human societies have adopted wildly different approaches to satisfying these physiological needs. Agrarian peoples kept healthy on vegetarian regimes of up to 80 percent starchy grains, while Inuit hunters of the Arctic once lived almost entirely on whale meat – perhaps the ultimate in high and low carbohydrate diets. However monotonous these traditional food habits may have seemed on a daily basis, they collectively illustrate the range of cultural adaptations that have taken shape over the course of world history. The rise of modern, industrial societies during the past three hundred years has increased personal choice while narrowing the overall diversity of human food supplies, just as novelty diets and individualistic eating habits have undermined the sense of community formed over the dinner table.