Books about the history of food and medicine (nonfiction)
1. 
The Removable Root Cause of Cancers and other Chronic Diseases : The Effort Theory of Evolution, Chronic Diseases and Extinction
by:
Paul Ola
3.70 avg rating — 27 ratings 2. 
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
by:
Steven Johnson
3.89 avg rating — 55,255 ratings 3. 
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by:
Jared Diamond
4.04 avg rating — 445,036 ratings 4. 
5. 
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
by:
Mark Kurlansky
3.92 avg rating — 24,360 ratings 
7. 
A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression
by:
Jane Ziegelman
3.75 avg rating — 2,207 ratings 
9. 
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
by:
Eric Schlosser
3.75 avg rating — 206,251 ratings 10. 
13. 
13. 
The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine
by:
Thomas Morris
3.79 avg rating — 4,482 ratings 
16. 
Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
by:
Thomas Hager
4.18 avg rating — 5,017 ratings 16. 
The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South
by:
John T. Edge
3.82 avg rating — 1,987 ratings 19. 
Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The American Medicine Show
by:
Ann Anderson
4.11 avg rating — 76 ratings 
21. 
American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic
by:
Victoria Johnson
4.03 avg rating — 1,191 ratings 
24. 
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine 4.31 avg rating — 21,431 ratings
24. 
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by:
Michael Pollan
4.19 avg rating — 208,899 ratings 24. 
Garlic, an Edible Biography: How the World's Most Pungent Food Changed the Course of History, Medicine, and Cuisine
by:
Robin Cherry
3.65 avg rating — 106 ratings 
28. 
Women Healers of the World: The Traditions, History, and Geography of Herbal Medicine
by:
Holly Bellebuono
4.12 avg rating — 89 ratings 28. 
28. 
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South 3.87 avg rating — 8,046 ratings
32. 
Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History
by:
Giles Milton
3.82 avg rating — 5,239 ratings 32. 
Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest
by:
Mark J. Plotkin
4.28 avg rating — 2,026 ratings 34. 
Ireland’s Green Larder: The Definitive History of Irish Food and Drink
by:
Margaret Hickey
4.16 avg rating — 58 ratings 34. 
Miracle Cure: The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine
by:
William Rosen
4.08 avg rating — 360 ratings 34. 
The End of the Line : How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat
by:
Charles Clover
4.09 avg rating — 538 ratings 37. 
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
by:
Lydia Kang
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 9,425 ratings 
37. 
Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New Medicines
by:
Donald R. Kirsch
4.26 avg rating — 1,201 ratings 37. 
Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of a Common Fate
by:
Mark Kurlansky
4.04 avg rating — 701 ratings 
41. 
Seeds of Resistance: The Fight to Save Our Food Supply
by:
Mark Schapiro
4.33 avg rating — 9 ratings 41. 
Cooking from the Heart: 100 Great American Chefs Share Recipes They Cherish
by:
Michael J. Rosen
3.86 avg rating — 7 ratings 45. 
Bleed, Blister, Puke and Purge: The Dirty Secrets Behind Early American Medicine
by:
J.M. Younker
3.72 avg rating — 176 ratings 45. 
Apricot village: Further reminiscences of the Aynho gardener it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings
45. 
How I Learned to Cook: Culinary Educations from the World's Greatest Chefs 3.73 avg rating — 612 ratings
48. 
Don't Eat This If You're Taking That: The Hidden Risks of Mixing Food and Medicine 3.51 avg rating — 159 ratings
48. 
I Am Not a Tractor!: How Florida Farmworkers Took On the Fast Food Giants and Won
by:
Susan L. Marquis
4.32 avg rating — 44 ratings 48. 
The Year of Drinking Adventurously: 52 Ways to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
by:
Jeff Cioletti
3.88 avg rating — 25 ratings 52. 
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time
by:
John Kelly
3.89 avg rating — 11,192 ratings 52. 
The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health 4.04 avg rating — 617 ratings
52. 
56. 
Dragon's Blood & Willow Bark: The Mysteries of Medieval Medicine
by:
Toni Mount
4.19 avg rating — 157 ratings 
56. 
Upstream: Searching for Wild Salmon, from River to Table
by:
Langdon Cook
4.19 avg rating — 239 ratings 56. 
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist—the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England
by:
Daniel Pool
3.85 avg rating — 5,732 ratings 60. 
Seeds of Change: Six Plants That Transformed Mankind
by:
Henry Hobhouse
3.82 avg rating — 621 ratings 
63. 
Seedtime: On the History, Husbandry, Politics and Promise of Seeds
by:
Scott Chaskey
4.02 avg rating — 52 ratings 
68. 
Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal
by:
Margaret Visser
3.88 avg rating — 846 ratings 68. 
The Price of Thirst: Global Water Inequality and the Coming Chaos
by:
Karen Piper
3.83 avg rating — 156 ratings 70. 
Ginseng, the Divine Root: The Curious History of the Plant That Captivated the World
by:
David A. Taylor
3.55 avg rating — 58 ratings 70. 
The Edge of the World: How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are
by:
Michael Pye
3.57 avg rating — 2,755 ratings 72. 
The Archaeology of Food and Warfare: Food Insecurity in Prehistory it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
72. 
The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
by:
Thor Hanson
4.10 avg rating — 3,014 ratings 
74. 
The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World
by:
Larry Zuckerman
3.61 avg rating — 556 ratings 
80. 
The Narrow Edge: A Tiny Bird, an Ancient Crab, and an Epic Journey
by:
Deborah Cramer
4.13 avg rating — 211 ratings 82. 
Emotionally Disturbed: A History of Caring for America's Troubled Children 4.57 avg rating — 7 ratings
86. 
Medicine Women: A Pictoral History of Women Healers
by:
Elisabeth Brooke
3.76 avg rating — 82 ratings 86. 
Red Sky at Night: The Book of Lost Countryside Wisdom
by:
Jane Struthers
3.72 avg rating — 426 ratings 88. 
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
by:
Bill Wasik
3.72 avg rating — 11,393 ratings 
90. 
The Miraculous Fever-Tree: Malaria, Medicine and the Cure that Changed the World
by:
Fiammetta Rocco
3.84 avg rating — 284 ratings 92. 
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by:
John M. Barry
3.98 avg rating — 42,018 ratings 
94. 
In the Kingdom of the Sick: A Social History of Chronic Illness in America
by:
Laurie Edwards
3.49 avg rating — 433 ratings 
96. 
People of the Peyote: Huichol Indian History, Religion, and Survival really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 18 ratings
96. 
For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World's Favourite Drink
by:
Sarah Rose
3.78 avg rating — 4,227 ratings 
