The purpose of this article is to examine the contribution of the studies Gilberto Freyre, Josué de Castro and Nelson Chaves produced for the development of the Pernambuco nutrition field, from 1930 to 1940. The article attempts to demonstrate that both subjects - starvation and eugenics - are the central categories that express tension and communion in these three authors' approaches to this field of knowledge.
starvation; eugenics; the history of nutrition in Brazil