WE ARE WHAT WE EAT, AND EATING HAS MADE US WHO WE ARE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL'S SIX-HOUR, THREE-NIGHT MINISERIES EVENT "EAT: THE STORY OF FOOD" PRESENTS THE WHOLE ENCHILADA OF FOOD HISTORY, SCIENCE AND CULTURE

Featuring Nearly 70 Interviews With Some of the Biggest Names In Food, the Miniseries Will Premiere Friday, Nov. 21, through Sunday, Nov. 23, at 9 PM ET/PT

(Washington, D.C. - Oct. 16, 2014) More than 50 years ago food revolutionary Julia Child appeared on a Boston television show to promote her cookbook and unwittingly launched the medium into the world of food. Since then there have been hundreds of TV cooking personalities, thousands of hours of cooking shows and multiple networks devoted solely to the topic. But despite all this, no network or show has ever looked back at when we ate what, why we ate it or how it's made us who we are.

Until now.

This Nov. 21-23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, National Geographic Channel (NGC) presents the comprehensive food story we've all been craving: EAT: The Story of Food, a six-hour miniseries event produced by National Geographic Studios in association with Creative Differences. The special satisfies every question you've ever had, and some you haven't, about the evolution of food over the course of humankind, from our ancestors throwing raw meat onto a fire for the first time, to teams of lab technicians perfecting the crunch of a potato chip. More important, it will show how this evolution of what we eat and how we eat it has actually defined human civilization and cultures around the globe.

Helping to serve up this all-you-can-eat buffet of information that only NGC can dish out are original interviews with nearly 70 chefs, authors, food experts and food scientists, including:

· José Andrés

· Nigella Lawson

· Rachael Ray

· Dan Barber

· Simon Majumdar

· Ruth Reichl

· Anna Boiardi

· Nobuyuki Matsuhisa

· Eric Ripert

· Graham Elliot

· Mashahuru Morimoto

· Marcus Samuelsson

· Eric Greenspan

· Nathan Myhrvold

· Barton Seaver

· Kerry Heffernan

· Garrett Oliver

· Andrew F. Smith

· Padma Lakshmi

· Michael Pollan

· Richard Wrangham

From the way Spam helped defeat Hitler, to how sausage spread the Roman Empire, to how spices created the global economy, EAT: The Story of Food leaves no morsel of information on the plate. Each of the six one-hour episodes is centered on a different theme: food revolutionaries, meat, sugar, seafood, junk food and grains. Throughout the episodes this incredible group of food ambassadors share their personal stories and reflections on food, not just looking back at history but looking forward to the future and at the cultural impact of our food consumption. Author Simon Majumdar summarizes this in his interview when he notes, "There are very few occasions in any family's life in any culture that aren't marked by a meal; from a new baby to an Irish wake and all points in between."

"What makes food really personal is that it makes you think," adds chef Marcus Samuelsson. "What tribe are you? Who are you? Who are we as a family? Who are we as a community? And what does this specific dish mean to us? It connects us."

In addition to this television special, National Geographic Channel and the National Geographic Society are exploring the future of food and celebrating our connection to food through a major, multiyear cross-platform initiative. The initiative grows out of an eight-month series in National Geographic magazine looking at how we can feed our growing world population. The magazine's coverage is now available as a free iPad app at natgeofoodapp.com. The initiative has also included two new books, a website at natgeofood.com, an education curriculum, events and exhibitions.

EAT: The Story of Food will air internationally on National Geographic Channels in 440 million homes, in 171 countries and 45 languages, as well as on the Spanish-language network Nat Geo Mundo. It will be available on DVD at shop.nationalgeographic.com on Tuesday, December 16, 2014.

For more information on the miniseries please visit http://NatGeoEat.com, or follow us on Twitter at @NatGeoChannel.

EPISODES:

Food Revolutionaries Premieres Friday, Nov. 21, at 9 PM ET/PT Throughout history food revolutionaries have transformed the way we look at food, cook food and sell food. The unlikely television star Julia Child kicked off the vast food entertainment industry when she appeared on TV to promote her new cookbook and encouraged viewers to demand more from their dinner plates. Over 400 years earlier Christopher Columbus crossed the ocean looking for pepper, a commodity so valuable that when he found the chili pepper in "the New World" he tried unsuccessfully to pass it off as a kind of pepper back home. French chef Auguste Escoffier made fine French food accessible to people by codifying French recipes in a definitive cookbook, and 100 years later science nerd Nathan Myhrvold raised the ante with his $600, 1,000-page "Modernist Cuisine" cookbook. The rise of processed foods in the 20th century was led by Chef Hector Boiardi, who made it possible for people from all over America to enjoy the food he made in his restaurant by mass-producing his sauce, and by Clarence Birdseye, whose discovery of ways to make frozen food taste good led to, among other things, the rise of the TV dinner. And finally, Howard Moskowitz's theories on human taste gave consumers more choices in the grocery store.

Carnivores Premieres Friday, Nov. 21, at 10 PM ET/PT The story of meat is the story of mankind. One primatologist claims that cooked meat may have started it all: Once prehumans heated their food, their bodies obtained more energy, causing them to reproduce better and survive longer. Humans' insatiable appetite may have eaten its way through prehistoric beasts, effectively modifying the food chain and, consequentially, the landscape. The next step was to take food on the road, and, after realizing salt could be a preservative, the Romans did just that to help expand their empire. From there the story goes global: In China, disease nearly wipes out their beloved pork stock; Americans discover how to mass produce chickens; Spam keeps soldiers fed in World War II; and the hamburger becomes the most ubiquitous of all meat dishes, with McDonalds claiming to sell 75 hamburgers every second. Today the food supply can barely keep up with the demand, and scientists are trying to find solutions for our hunger: in-vitro meat, insects and veggie burgers.

Sugar Rushes Premieres Saturday, Nov. 22, at 9 PM ET/PT For millions of years our ancestors' diet was filled with the richest fruit from the tops of the tree canopy in the rain forest. When climates changed and our traditional sources of energy dwindled, many species died along with that disappearing bounty, but those with the ability to process sugar survived. About 10,000 years ago, somewhere in Asia, sugarcane was first farmed, and later, in India, these sweet stalks were turned into "khanda," or candy. Sugar was then carried from India along the Silk Road to China, the Middle East and Europe. People began to consume it voraciously through Europe's three newly discovered culinary drugs: chocolate from the New World, coffee from the Middle East and tea from the Far East. Christopher Columbus brought sugarcane to the Caribbean, where the plant thrived and would ultimately reveal the dark side of sugar: the slave trade. Industrialization created new ways to produce even more refined sugar, and the golden age of the candy bar followed. Sugar consumption reflects both our fears about who we are and our fantasies about who we might become. The story of sugar is the story of us.

Sea Changes Premieres Saturday, Nov. 22, at 10 PM ET/PT From the deadliest catch to the wickedest tuna, fruit from the sea continues to redefine who and what we are today. High-protein, omega-rich seafood saved our species from its first threat of extinction, drove the Viking hordes, funded the American Revolution, gave hope to the Allies during two world wars, and increasingly fuels our brains and muscles today. Market fish like cod and tuna defined entire eras of history, but unsustainable practices are forcing us to redefine our commercial goals in the ocean. Current demand necessitates a sea change in our attitudes toward seafood. Increasingly, we look "off the eaten path," investigating ways to catch, eat and prepare what the sea gives us instead of creating unsustainable demands for a single species. Newly developed techniques of 3-D ocean farming of oysters, mussels and sea kelp not only sustain us but heal the oceans as well.

Guilty Pleasures Premieres Sunday, Nov. 23, at 9 PM ET/PT It's the stuff we love to hate: processed food. It has changed what we eat so much that today our ancestors would hardly recognize it as food. The modern quest for this fast and convenient food may have begun with Herman Lay and his innovative individual packages of potato chips. During World War II industrialization gave us Spam, processing techniques developed for soldier rations gave us frozen foods and an increasingly female workforce gave rise to the need for quick and easy meals. The interstate highway system literally paved the way for fast food restaurants, and people were hooked. With companies around the world churning out new products to get a slice of someone's "stomach share," questions and concerns abound about the health and safety of these foods loaded with sugar, fat and salt. The question about embracing or fighting this fast food revolution may be even more important for our future.

Staffs of Life Premieres Sunday, Nov. 23, at 10 PM ET/PT The discovery of how to grow and cook grain led to the establishment of agriculture, which ultimately allowed humans to end hunter/gatherer practices and settle into the stay-at-home family groups that formed the earliest civilizations. Grains more than any other foods are emblematic of the struggle between the haves and have-nots, as evidenced by the French Revolution, and ancient versus modern, exemplified through the development of packaged sliced bread. In the past 80 years attempts to refine this once-perfect food have resulted in the unintended consequences of making some breads empty of nutrition and gluten arising as the newest enemy among food warriors. Today grains in their purest form have risen again with a renewed embrace of the natural and artisanal found in a great loaf of bread, an amber mug of craft beer or a hand-tossed crust in a gourmet pizza pie.

EAT: The Story of Food is produced by National Geographic Studios (NGS) in association with Creative Differences. Brooke Runnette is president of National Geographic Studios and she and Erik Nelson are executive producers. Pam Caragol Wells is also executive producer for NGS. For NGC, Kathleen Cromley is executive producer, Kevin Mohs is vice president of production and development, Noel Siegel is SVP of development and production, Heather Moran is EVP of programming and strategy, and Tim Pastore is president of original programming and production.

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National Geographic Channels

Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channels US are a joint venture between National Geographic and Fox Networks. The Channels contribute to the National Geographic Society's commitment to exploration, conservation and education with smart, innovative programming and profits that directly support its mission. Launched in January 2001, National Geographic Channel (NGC) celebrated its fifth anniversary with the debut of NGC HD. In 2010 the wildlife and natural history cable channel Nat Geo WILD was launched, and in 2011 the Spanish-language network Nat Geo Mundo was unveiled. The Channels have carriage with all of the nation's major cable, telco and satellite television providers, with NGC currently available in over 85 million U.S. homes. Globally, National Geographic Channel is available in more than 440 million homes, in 171 countries and 45 languages. For more information, visit www.natgeotv.com.