Fed Up
What Evolution Reveals About Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well
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- Pedido anticipado
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- Se espera: 11 ago 2026
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- USD 11.99
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- Pedido anticipado
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- USD 11.99
Descripción editorial
A brilliant, no-nonsense look at two questions we never evolved to ask but now must consider several times a day: what should we eat, and why?
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—cuts through all the confusing and contradictory advice on diet and wellness to argue that there can be no simple, definitive answer. Drawing 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 flawless though 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 also 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lieberman (Exercised), a paleoanthropologist at Harvard University, delivers a well-researched explanation of how evolution has affected people's eating habits and weight. He notes that, as obesity rates climb in the U.S. and abroad, many people turn to popular diets like paleo or keto. Though these can lead to weight loss in the short term, most dieters eventually regain the weight, Lieberman explains. He describes the history behind eating trends such as the raw food and Mediterranean diets, analyzing the pros and cons of each. The raw food diet, for example, developed in the 19th century out of the idea that cooking destroys natural nutrients. Lieberman tried it himself and lost weight, but his energy levels were zapped. He explains that cooking largely has a negligible effect on micronutrients and can sometimes enhance their availability. Elsewhere, he unpacks newer fads, like intermittent fasting and the Atkins Diet, and explains that the culprit in many cases of obesity and poor metabolism is ultra-processed foods. Ultimately, he finds that when choosing what to eat, people should embrace complexity and variation and be skeptical of one-size-fits-all solutions. Nuanced and evidence-based, this is a life raft for readers navigating the deluge of nutrition advice.
