This chapter sets out the key aims and focus of the edited volume, arguing that the use of scientific discourse in food marketing has a long history dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. Drawing upon key examples from the authors’ many years of research in the area, it outlines why it is necessary to study this topic from both a transhistorical and multimodal perspective and the important insights that this can offer into contemporary food marketing. The chapter also underscores four key themes that run across the 13 chapters that make up the volume—scientific motherhood; the paradoxical blend of science with tradition and/or nature; hygiene and cleanliness in relation to food safety and health values; and healthism and the medicalisation of everyday life—as well as key studies to have been carried out in these important areas of research. It ends by appealing for further dialogue and transhistorical, multimodal studies in order to enrich our understanding of the link between science, food marketing and healthy lifestyles.