WHY SOME LIKE IT HOT: FOOD, GENES, AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Book ID/图书代码： 06745505B05110

English Summary/英文概要： Do your ears burn whenever you eat hot chile peppers? Does your face immediately flush when you drink alcohol? Does your stomach groan if you are exposed to raw milk or green fava beans? If so, you are probably among the one-third of the world’s human population that is sensitive to certain foods due to your genes’ interactions with them.

Formerly misunderstood as "genetic disorders," many of these sensitivities are now considered to be adaptations that our ancestors evolved in response to the dietary choices and diseases they faced over millennia in particular landscapes. They are liabilities only when we are "out of place," on globalized diets depleted of certain chemicals that triggered adaptive responses in our ancestors.

In Why Some Like It Hot, an award-winning natural historian takes us on a culinary odyssey to solve the puzzles posed by "the ghosts of evolution" hidden within every culture and its traditional cuisine. As we travel with Nabhan from Java and Bali to Crete and Sardinia, to Hawaii and Mexico, we learn how various ethnic cuisines formerly protected their traditional consumers from both infectious and nutrition-related diseases. We also bear witness to the tragic consequences of the loss of traditional foods, from adult-onset diabetes running rampant among 100 million indigenous peoples to the historic rise in heart disease among individuals of northern European descent.

In this, the most insightful and far-reaching book of his career, Nabhan offers us a view of genes, diets, ethnicity, and place that will forever change the way we understand human health and cultural diversity. This book marks the dawning of evolutionary gastronomy in a way that may save and enrich millions of lives.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 每次吃黑胡椒的时候，你是不是总是会觉得耳朵很热？是不是一喝酒精类饮品就会面红耳赤？你吃青蚕豆或者喝生奶时会不会胃很不舒服？如果是的话，那么你就是那三分之一人口中由于基因过敏症而无法适应某种食物的人群中的一分子。
这些过敏反应症曾经被误认为是“基因紊乱症”，而现在大家都明白这只是我们老祖先在几千年进化过程中在特定地形地貌的场合下为了适应饮食花样和各种疾病而做出的自我调节手段。只有当我们不无法适应的时候，这些过敏症状就成为了一种负担，全球化的饮食套餐中已经完全没有了那些特定的激发我们祖先们做出调节反应的化学元素。
《为什么有人喜欢吃辣》是一次饮食之旅，解开每一种文化习俗和各个文化传统烹饪法中隐含的进化恶魔之迷，这将彻底改变我们对健康和文化多样性的看法。

Awards/获奖情况：With 21st-century science promising better living through genetic engineering, and myriad diet fads claiming to be the answer to obesity and disease, this exploration of the coevolution of communities and their native foods couldn’t be more timely. Ethnobiologist Nabhan (Coming Home to Eat) investigates the intricate web of culture, food and environment to show that even though 99.9% of the genetic makeup of all humans is identical, "each traditional cuisine has evolved to fit the inhabitants of a particular landscape or seascape over the last several millennia." Sardinians are genetically sensitive to fava beans, which can give them anemia but can also protect them from the malaria once epidemic in the region. Navajos are similarly sensitive to sage. In both cases, traditional knowledge allows safe interactions with these powerful medicine/poisons through cooking methods or food combinations. Nabhan questions the wisdom of genetic therapy, which "normalizes" the "bad" genes that can cause sickness but also enhance immunity. Most inspiring in this bioethnic detective story are Cretans, maintaining their health for centuries through traditional living, and Native Americans and Hawaiians, whose communities, devastated by diabetes, find an antidote by returning to their traditional foods, customs and agriculture. Mixing hard science with personal anecdotes, Nabhan convincingly argues that health comes from a genetically appropriate diet inextricably entwined with a healthy land and culture. ---From Publishers Weekly

Ethnobotanist and nutritional ecologist Nabhan continues the paradigm-altering investigation into the matrix of food, place, ethnicity, and well-being that he’s been conducting in such influential books as Coming Home to Eat (2002). A leading voice in the slow-food movement and a thoroughly engaging guide, Nabhan now delineates the evolutionary dimension of newly recognized interactions among cuisine, culture, and genetics that inspired him to modify an old adage: "We are what our ancestors ate and drank." He teases out the evolutionary secrets of chili peppers and explains why some folks like them hot and others can’t take the heat. Since it’s easiest to see the hidden benefits of ethnic cuisines in isolated island societies, he travels to Sardinia, where, for centuries, fava beans have protected the populace from malaria, and to Hawaii, where natives have discovered that traditional yet neglected taro dishes control diabetes. With millions of people suffering from little-understood food-related maladies, Nabhan’s revelations of the complexities of our inherited interactions with food, the true significance of the healthful "synergies" of traditional ethnic cuisines, and the essentiality of both biodiversity and cultural diversity are as critical as they are fascinating.---Donna Seaman, From Booklist

About the Author/作者介绍： GARY PAUL NABHAN has been at the forefront of ethnobiology and nutritional ecology for three decades. He has been honored with a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Conservation Biology. His books and essays have won numerous awards, including the Burroughs Medal for nature writing, and have been translated into five languages. His original research that underlies this book has appeared in Nature, Science News, Slow, Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and Ecology of Food and Nutrition. A leader in the international Slow Food Movement, Nabhan grows native crops, Navajo-Churro sheep, and heirloom turkeys at his home in rural Arizona.

Format:TRADE PAPERBACK

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

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