Food Science
Food science is a broad field of study, but the definition of it can be viewed as understanding how food affects the human body in general, and particularly how its different compositions either react in a positive or negative way to the different conditions that the body might process food. Food science is the third step child of medical and scientific knowledge. Without the development of understanding the different scientific realms associated with the medical practices, people would still be in the Dark Ages of human health and nutrition. Food science involves many different areas of study such as the chemical and biological arenas, and can be broken down further into specialties of pharmacology and toxicology.
Areas that you might not consider represented in food science is the historical study of recipes from immigrants the world over. The food choices and patterns reflected their overall health or lack of it. In some cases immigration of people can be part of the reason for leaving a native culture, such as in the case of the Irish immigration to the United States beginning in 1846 due to the potato famine which resulted in extreme poverty and hunger. The study of food science is so far reaching that new professions have been developed from it like food processing engineering, or the processing of developing new ways to safely store food items, and other nutritional issues. This history of medicine, science and food is a broad topic and one that is never boring.