Food is not just something we eat to fill our stomachs; there is diversity, culture, and nutrition in every bite! This week on the show, host Dr. Cassandra Quave speaks with Dr. Anna Herforth, senior research associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. They discuss the importance of understanding the diversity of diets worldwide from a nutritional perspective and how different cultures' eating habits impact health. Dr. Herforth shares insights into the Global Diet Quality Project, which aims to conduct the first-ever global survey of what people eat, the challenges faced in gathering such data, and the innovative methods used to achieve it. The conversation reveals surprising findings about food diversity, the process of tailoring food surveys to different cultures, and the initiative's broader implications for nutrition and epidemiology research. They also talk about the upcoming launch of the World Food Map, a collaboration with the Periodic Table of Food Initiative, aimed at cataloguing the most common foods in every country and understanding their composition beyond traditional nutrients, emphasizing the critical role of food diversity in health.
Happening this week (April 23-24), join Dr. Herforth and the PTFI team for a special symposium "Celebrating food diversity, scientific advances, and community innovation" (online or in person at New York Botanical Garden). More details and how to register at this link.
This podcast is sponsored by The Periodic Table of Food Initiative in association with the American Heart Association. The views and opinions in this podcast are those of the presenters and represent the synthesis of science. For more information on the Periodic Table of Food Initiative, please visit https://foodperiodictable.org/
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