Why We Eat: Science Reveals How to Think Smarter about Diet and Food

＂Food Intelligence dispels many popular myths we have about weight loss and breaks down the real drivers of the obesity crisis based on decades of research. I really hope everyone gets a chance to read this book.＂ --Sanjay Gupta, MD, Chief Medical Correspondent at CNN and host of Chasing Life

The essential guide for understanding what you’re eating, and the forces that are driving you to eat it.

Nutrition isn’t rocket science; it’s harder.

There are new diet fads, bold claims about superfoods and articles promising the secrets to lasting weight-loss and longevity. The more ’expert’ advice we hear about diet, the less clarity we have about what to eat.

In Food Intelligence, award-winning health journalist, Julia Belluz, and internationally renowned nutrition and metabolism scientist, Kevin Hall, cut through the myths about nutrition to deliver a comprehensive book on food, diet, metabolism and healthy eating.

Breaking food down into its constituent parts, Food Intelligence reveals:

• The real science behind how protein, fat, carbs and vitamins impact our bodies
• The wonders of metabolism
• The latest ’theories’ about blood sugar trackers and ultra-processed foods
• How our food environment shapes our eating behaviors and the food choices we make every day
• How diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes are not a result of a failure of will power; they are consequences of food systems working as designed

Humane and deeply reported, this journey into the science of what we eat will equip you with the food intelligence you need to better understand what’s on your dinner plate, how it got there, and why you eat it.

Kevin Hall, PhD is an internationally recognized expert in nutrition, metabolism, and obesity research. A physicist by training, he is tenured Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. Hall has twice received the Director’s Award from both the NIH and the NIDDK and has also received the E.V. McCullum Award from the American Society for Nutrition, the Lilly Scientific Achievement Award from The Obesity Society, and the Guyton Award for Excellence in Integrative Physiology from the American Society of Physiology.

Julia Belluz is a health journalist at Vox who focuses on translating medical research and scientists’ big ideas into clear and precise language. She has worked on Netflix, podcasts, SnapChat, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and has been published widely on the subject of health science, in the Economist, ProPublica, Los Angeles Times, Slate, British Medical Journal, Maclean’s, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post. Belluz was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She presents at health science and journalism forums around the world, actively training the next generation of journalists and communicators.