There is such an enormous amount of information about food available to the general public that it would be impossible to summarise or discuss its significance in one book. Instead this book looks at contemporary food issues starting with how modern food is produced/manufactured, then discussing what we should be eating and why we are easting it and ending with what the food does to us once we have consumed it.
Each Chapter is written by an expert in the subject and topics include the origins and progress of scientifically moderated food, how some germs that we eat will keep us healthy, whereas others will kill us, the origins of food allergy, what we should be feeding our children and how our emotions control our eating habits
This is not a book that that will tell you how to live your life or how to eat healthily.
There are no diets or anti-allergy plans.
What we are aiming to do is ask you to take a moment out of your day to give some thought for food you are eating and hopefully provide you with some food for thought. …..
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Introduction
People, food, health, and technologies
PART I Food and culture
People and food
Attitudes to food
Early technology and food
Food and language
PART II Winning food
People evolved as hunter-gatherers
Early plant processing technologies and biotechnologies
Hunter-gatherers manage and manipulate plants and animals
The remarkable Kumeyaay people
PART III Creating food
The farming revolution
The creation of domesticated species
Agriculture only developed in a few places and very few plants or animals were ever domesticated
Farming, lifestyles, and human health
PART IV Managing and improving food creation
Crop management
Empirical genetic manipulation for crop improvement
Biotechnologies, ancient and modern
Biotechnology and the 20th century population explosion
PART V Genetic engineering and other 21st century technologies
Biotechnologies for the 21st century – it’s not all about GM!
The importance of context and provenance for biotechnologies
Why were GM crops rejected in Europe?
GM crops: consumer reaction and global impact
Has the impact of GM technology been exaggerated?
Future perspectives
Acknowledgements
Citations
About the Author: Professor Denis Murphy, BA (Hons), DPhil, FSB
Probiotics and beneficial gut microbes
Introducing probiotics
Bacteria within us
Contribution of gut bacteria to human health
Gut microbes and host nutrition
Beneficial bacteria in food? Since the days of the cavemen
Beneficial bacteria – discovered, then nearly forgotten… and re-discovered
Health benefits of probiotics – Digestive health
The use of probiotics to reduce or avoid the side-effects of antibiotic treatments
Irritable bowel syndrome
Digestion of food
Inflammatory bowel diseases
Reduction of gut pathogens
Health benefits of probiotics – Immune health
Are all probiotics equal?
Safety of probiotics
Concluding remarks
About the Author: Dr Sampo Lahtinen, PhD
Food Poisoning in the United Kingdom at the Start of the Twenty first Century
What is Food Poisoning?
Food Poisoning in the UK
The Key Food Safety Challenges
Campylobacter
Listeria monocytogenes
E.coli
Norovirus
Salmonella
Clostridium Perfringens
Top Tips for Avoiding Food Poisoning and Staying Healthy
Finding out more about food poisoning
Ackowledgements
About the Author: Dr Christopher Gooding, BSc, PhD
You can wear pink socks to the party, but you can’t bring pink wafers!
Once upon a time
Diet, nutrition and behaviour
School food standards – making the right choice the easy choice?
Packed lunches
Be Label Aware!
The Stats
Good practice in a secondary schools
Moving on
Big Brother
The problem with common sense
What’s it got to do with me?
It’s nothing like smoking! Or “Do as I say, not as I do”
Happily ever after
About the Author: Jo Smith
Eating the emotion
How we use food to change our mood
Introduction
In the beginning… we are born hungry, hungry for love, hungry for food
Clara
Dan
Using a framework to understand emotional eating
Parent ego-state
Adult ego-state
Child ego-state
How do we decide to use food to soothe ourselves?
Some common patterns
What initiates and perpetuates emotional eating?
Why diets alone don’t work
What is the alternative to dieting?
So how can we stop eating our emotions?
Seeking professional help
Conclusion
Citations
About the Authors: Ayse Banbridge and Sonia Di Gennaro
Factors affecting the development of food allergy
What is food allergy?
What illnesses does food allergy cause?
Is food allergy more common than it used to be, or do we just recognise it more often?
If food allergy is getting more common, do we know why this is happening?
Do we know why food allergy occurs in the first place?
OK – well how does our body decide whether or not to make an allergic response to a food that we eat then?
And what sort of things might stop this from working properly?
i. A disturbed gut lining
ii. A highly allergic immune system
iii. Abnormal early food exposures
iv. More complex interactions between the environment and our genetic makeup
So when food allergy does happen, what is the body reacting to?
What determines whether an allergic reaction will be severe and life threatening or not?
So what should I do to prevent my child from developing food allergy
a. Avoidance of common food allergens
b. Early introduction of common food allergens such as peanut or egg to a child’s diet
c. Vitamin supplements
d. Oily fish
e. Probiotics
f. Breast feeding
g. Skin care
h. Other ways of preventing allergy
Conclusions
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