Dr. Bill Schindler to host weekly virtual discussions from new book

By Cecilia Cress
News Co-Editor

Dr. William Schindler began hosting a weekly virtual course where he discusses each chapter of his new book, “Eat Like a Human,” which was published on Nov. 16, 2021.

Dr. Schindler was the center director of the Eastern Shore Food Lab at Washington College and a professor in the Department of Anthropology before leaving WC in 2021.

He received his bachelor’s degree from the College of New Jersey and obtained his Ph.D. from Temple University in Philadelphia. 

While at the College, he encouraged students to “embark on journeys that completely change how they think about their history as human beings, particularly as it relates to the fundamental necessity of finding and preparing food and making the tools needed to hunt and process foods,” according to the WC website.

“For years, I would have students at the house, night-after-night, butchering deer, making cheese and grinding grains to provide valuable hands-on opportunities to bring to life what they learned in the classroom,” Dr. Schindler said on the “Eat Like a Human” website.

He “drew students closer to the sources of food” by showing them how to create tools necessary for survival in nature, how to form and fire clay cooking vessels, and more.

“Dr. Schindler engages students in first-hand experiences that teach them about primitive technology and our relationship with food. This is a professor who shapes his own hunting tools, makes use of every part of the animal, forages for wild edibles and bakes bread with wheat he milled and in an oven that — you guessed it — he made himself,” according to the WC website.

Dr. Schindler’s book, “Eat Like a Human: Nourishing Foods and Ancient Ways of Cooking to Revolutionize Your Health,” focuses on ways individuals can improve their physical and mental health through eating more natural and nutritious foods.

“Our relationship to food is filled with confusion and insecurity…Every day we hear about a new ingredient that is good or bad, a new diet that promises everything. Our conversations are filled with a dizzying array of approaches to and perspectives on our relationship to food. But the truth is that none of those labels matter,” according to the book’s website. 

In his book, Dr. Schindler writes that “safety, nutrient density and bioavailability are the cornerstones of a healthy diet,” and he “shows readers how to live like modern ‘hunter-gatherers’ by using the same strategies our ancestors used — as well as techniques still practiced by many cultures around the world — to make food as safe, nutritious, bioavailable, and delicious as possible.”

During February and March, Dr. Schindler will be hosting 10 live virtual classes. Each week, he will explore a different chapter of the book, including “behind-the-scenes stories and interviews with special guests from around the world,” according to the website.

“Classes will also include question and answer sessions and step-by-step cooking demonstrations with select recipes from each chapter,” the website said. 

“Today’s health problems are not just a product of food choices. Our relationship with food does not exist in a vacuum. That is why diets don’t work — they are always out of context because they do not consider all of the other aspects of ‘life’ important to us. How we acquire, process, store, share and consume food is uniquely human and embedded in practically all aspects of our lives,” according to the website.

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