Both the environment and food have important impacts on human health. However, research on the macro-level patterns and micro-level mechanisms of their complex interactions affecting health remains limited. Environmental food science, centered on the scientific theme of coupling "environment-food" with "health", conducts systematic research on dietary behaviors and health-related scientific and technological issues across diverse spatiotemporal environments. It represents a newly emerging interdisciplinary direction within food science. This paper reviews the research trajectory and progress in understanding the relationships among environment, food, and health, evolving from the "binary relationship" between environment and food to the "ternary relationship" among environment, food, and health. Taking the research achievements of the key laboratory of environmental food science, ministry of education at Huazhong Agricultural University as examples, the paper provides an in-depth analysis of the scientific connotation and recent advances in environmental food science.