We may not suffer from nutrient deficiencies in Cambridge anymore but is the abundance of food available all-year-round responsible for our preoccupation with food and health?

Dr Gail Goldberg, from the MRC Collaborative Centre for Human Nutrition Research will give tonight’s Spotlight on Science lecture and will talk about the relationship between diet and health, then and now.

Did people really have healthier diets 50 years ago? Are things really that bad today? Dr Goldberg will answer these questions by looking at the results of dietary surveys and other pioneering work conducted in Cambridge over the last century.

Travelling further back in time, Dr Goldberg will discuss people’s nutritional health when Einstein produced his famous equation.

“Back then people were preoccupied with food but for different reasons to today. There were concerns over rationing and the availability of food that was often produced locally, available seasonally and did not keep for more than a day. This in itself helped deter overeating or overindulging as certain foods were only available at specific times of the year,” she says.

Looking forward, Dr Goldberg will consider what nutrition-related health problems might be waiting for us in the next 100 years and will also ponder on what we might be eating in the future. Will we be enjoying tasty, yet calorie-free cake, take a single pill to meet all our dietary needs or will we return to the ’Good Life’?

The lecture will be held tonight, Thursday 17 March, at the Mill Lane Lecture Room 3 from 7.30-9pm.

For more information on the seminar or The Cambridge Science Festival, please phone 01223 766 766 or log on at www.cambridgescience.org

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