We may end up having to mimic what animals do, to play with the message of Eat Like the Animals: What nature teaches us about the science of healthy eating (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by David Raubenheimer and Stephen Simpson. It is true we have trouble doing what a blob of slime mould and baboon do instinctively – eat for optimal health. Fortunately, the authors say our appetite can be hacked for our own good.

Nutrition experts David Raubenheimer and Stephen J. Simpson look at the problem from a different angle. To explain why so many of us struggle to keep off those few extra kilos, they look to the natural world. Why is it that wild animals know what to eat, and how much, but we have to learn about nutrients and calories and we still get it wrong? Raubenheimer and Simpson use the science of nutrition to explain how to learn from our furry friends and eat like the animals.

The book sets out 35 years of research and friendship in clear, fascinating detail and is filled with astonishing stories of meticulous research: like pursuing a single grasshopper on foot through the Arizona desert, recording precisely what and when it ate; or feeding 25 different protein-carbohydrate mixtures to 200 locusts for three weeks ...; or sweating through dengue fever, cyclonic storms and ferocious fires in the Bolivian rainforest to study the endangered spider monkey’s diet.

A mind-blowing look at the ground-breaking research of two Charles Perkins Centre biologists, Stephen Simpson and David Raubenheimer, on what animals can teach us about human diet and health. It’s made me love scientists even more than I thought possible.