Food Science, Cooking and Nutrition

What should we eat? What is the science of what happens when we cook?  How do basic cooking techniques influence nutrition? What is food quality? What is the role of social organizations (food hubs, co-ops and intentional communities) in supporting food quality for all people?

This program takes a scientific approach to food, as balanced by historical, anthropological, sustainability and food policy perspectives. The topics we’ll address span a broad range of scales, from the science of food to nutrition to sustainability and food policy. In particular, we’ll discuss and engage hands-on with food quality, nutrition and flavor, as they are created by a healthy soil. Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking and America's Test Kitchen's The Science of Cooking, will be our guides for the science of food in both theoretical and applied senses. 

We will explore basic nutrition using the Text, Understanding Nutrition. We will become familiar with the current US diet that appears to be causing inflammation and subsequently chronic diseases as well as potential solutions. To understand the food system and its impact on quality and accessibility, we will examine the impact of US farm and food policy on nutrition of food, as well as the lives of farmers, farmworkers, and those who cook for others.

Program activities include lectures, cooking labs, workshops, seminars, and field trips to farms, food processors, a possible local conference and a food hub/co-op. In labs, as we focus on the science of cooking, we will examine both the phenomenon of taste and basic techniques of food preparation in Evergreen’s food-grade Sustainable Agriculture Lab. Seminar readings will present the co-evolution of humans with their food crops and livestock, as well as historical and current issues in food and agriculture. Seminar books may include such authors as Nabhan (Food, Genes and Culture or Where Your Food Comes From), Montgomery and Biklé (What Your Food Ate), Tulleken (Ultra-Processed People) and Deborah Madison (Onion in My Pocket), who cooked in community.

This program will help those who cook --or aspire to-- be more conscious of both the science of cooking and food quality in its broadest sense. It will develop a “systems” understanding for those who are interested in a career in food, gardening and/or societal change. Those who are relatively new to the field will become acquainted with the broad array of topics involved in the food system from soil to plate and gain new cooking skills! Individual projects with upper-division science credit options will be supported when appropriate.  

Interested non-first-year students are encouraged to propose an in-program ILC or capstone project as described in this quarter's Food and Agriculture Projects with Martha Rosemeyer program to partner and collaborate with Food Hubs.

Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:
8 Food Science with Laboratory

4 Food Systems

4 Introduction to Human Nutrition