This graduate seminar explores food as fundamental to human existence in a variety of ways. We eat to maintain life - and the nutritional characteristics of human diets shape the development and health of individuals and populations. But, for the most part, humans do not eat nutrients, humans eat food, and food consumption and production is an intensely cultural, social, and political activity. We will explore food and nutrition from all these perspectives. In addition to theorizing food and nutrition, we will become familiar with the methods most often used by national and global scholars and practitioners for assessing dietary and nutritional status of individuals and populations.