Introduction

Few topics interest so many different people in so many different ways as does the subject of food. Of course, people need to eat to stay alive, grow and develop, and maintain good health. This need presents ongoing challenges for humans: finding ways of growing crops and raising animals in the most efficient way in the conditions available, inventing methods for competing successfully against plant and animals that also...

The History Of Food Modification

Food is essential to human survival. It provides the proteins, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals needed to stay alive, grow, and stay healthy. Food also serves other social and re­ligious functions. Seder meals, birthday dinners, awards banquets, wake buffets, and other food-related functions bring people together for a host of cultural purposes. In some fundamental ways, the role of food in human society...

From Smoked Mastodon to Salt Pork

Questions about the value and safety of different categories of food are especially difficult to answer because people have been modi­fying foods almost since the dawn of civilization. In fact, without certain types of food modification, the human species might never have survived on Earth. By far the most common and oldest type of food modification used by humans is food preservation. Imagine, for instance, a com­munity...