Three discoveries determined the health and history of the human species. The first occurred almost a million years ago, when our hominid precursors discovered how to use fire to cook the meat they had hunted. They found that cooked meat tasted better, it didn’t go bad so quickly, and eating it was less likely to make them ill. We’ve been improving our understanding of nutrition, a basic public health science, and the art of cooking, ever since.

Some 12,000 to 14,000 years ago as the world warmed up after the last Ice Age, two more discoveries transformed human communities forever. Our forebears, perhaps the women, learnt how to domesticate animals for food, milk and clothing. About the same time they discovered that seed grain could be planted, harvested, and stored from one season to the next, as well as used to make flour and thence bread and similar high-density carbohydrate foods. These great discoveries eliminated reliance on precarious hunting and gathering, and made permanent human settlements possible. They were the indispensable basis for every human achievement since.