Review Essay: Guts, Nutrition, and History

of historians have proven fascinated with the relation among food, medicine, and health, plotting out intricate histories of the sociocultural, emotional, and political aspects of nutrition, digestion, and consumption.By unravelling the complexities of eating (a matter not quite as mundane as it first appears), these historians have complemented traditional approaches by engaging with new methodologies, including those relating to the body and emotions.Food and health have always been closely intertwined, but historically and currently that relationship is one of remarkable flux.When I published a book on the history of the stomach back in 2011, little did I foresee that the microbiome-the hidden world of microorganisms dwelling in our guts that help regulate our physical and mental well-being-was about to be elevated into a core health concept. 1 Nor did I imagine, while writing a further book that, in part, explored the role of nutritional science in driving dietary change in post-Famine Ireland, that inadequate access to a healthy diet ("food poverty," to use the modern-day term) was to rearise in that country during the post-COVID economic crisis. 2 Given the timeliness and persistent importance of matters pertaining to dietary health, it seems astonishing that their history remains somewhat sidelined in academic history writing.Perhaps the study of food appears too mundane, maybe too quirky, or could it be that snobbishness exists in some circles towards historiographical studies of food?My personal view is