This course focuses on food and nutrition though the lens of anthropology. Topics will vary, but each semester the course will provide insight into an aspect of food and nutrition that is relevant to present-day concerns in regional, national and/or global context. Nutrition is one of the most critical health issues in the U.S. and globally as people struggle with both under nutrition and over nutrition and the long-term consequences of both to human well-being. At the same time, it is important to recognize that food is embedded in cultural, social, and political-economic contexts that serve to foster and maintain cultural and social identity, and/or in which food is a commodity to be bought, sold and traded for economic profit and/or political gain.

This course focuses on food and nutrition though the lens of anthropology. Topics will vary, but each semester the course will provide insight into an aspect of food and nutrition that is relevant to present-day concerns in regional, national and/or global context. Nutrition is one of the most critical health issues in the U.S. and globally as people struggle with both under nutrition and over nutrition and the long-term consequences of both to human well-being. At the same time, it is important to recognize that food is embedded in cultural, social, and political-economic contexts that serve to foster and maintain cultural and social identity, and/or in which food is a commodity to be bought, sold and traded for economic profit and/or political gain.