Cuisine: the concept and its health and nutrition implications - global

Cuisine, broadly food culture, has evolved greatly in the past ten thousand years, following the domestication of plants and animals which greatly increased the food supply and led to villages, cities and civilizations. Major factors in the evolution of cuisines have been the existing biota, soils, fuel for cooking and climates, followed by new technologies, exploration and trade. These provide the context of the world’s amazing variety of cuisines, but not the understanding of why cuisines developed as they have, in particular why China has the world’s greatest cuisine. There is evidence that the diet of older women in Zhejiang province meets the recent WHO guidelines for the prevention of chronic disease, consistent with reported longevity in the province. But current changes with the industrialization and globalization of cuisines are associated with increases in chronic diseases, and point to much greater increases in the future.