Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health, Revised and Expanded Edition (California Studies in Food and Culture)
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Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health, Revised and Expanded Edition (California Studies in Food and Culture), ISBN:9780520254039
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Binding: Paperback Release Date: October 2007 Edition: 2 List Price:$19.95
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ISBN-13: 9780520254039 ISBN-10: 0520254031 Author: Marion Nestle Publisher: University of California Press
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Summary:
In the U.S., we're bombarded with nutritional advice--the work, we assume, of reliable authorities with our best interests at heart. Far from it, says Marion Nestle, whose Food Politics absorbingly details how the food industry--through lobbying, advertising, and the co-opting of experts--influences our dietary choices to our detriment. Central to her argument is the American "paradox of plenty," the recognition that our food abundance (we've enough calories to meet every citizen's needs twice over) leads profit-fixated food producers to do everything possible to broaden their market portion, thus swaying us to eat more when we should do the opposite. The result is compromised health: epidemic obesity to start, and increased vulnerability to heart and lung disease, cancer, and stroke--reversible if the constantly suppressed "eat less, move more" message that most nutritionists shout could be heard.
Nestle, nutrition chair at New York University and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General Report, has served her time in the dietary trenches and is ideally suited to revealing how government nutritional advice is watered down when a message might threaten industry sales. (Her report on byzantine nutritional food-pyramid rewordings to avoid "eat less" recommendations is both predictable and astonishing.) She has other "war stories," too, that involve marketing to children in school (in the form of soft-drink "pouring rights" agreements, hallway advertising, and fast-food coupon giveaways), and diet-supplement dramas in which manufacturers and the government enter regulation frays, with the industry championing "free choice" even as that position counters consumer protection. Is there hope? "If we want to encourage people to eat better diets," says Nestle, "we need to target societal means to counter food industry lobbying and marketing practices as well as the education of individuals." It's a telling conclusion in an engrossing and masterfully panoramic exposé. --Arthur Boehm
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Informative for 2002
Customer Rating:
Originally published in 2002 and updated in 2007 Marion Nestle's "Food Politics" is an informative if academic read. She explains clearly and patiently how the food industry has co-opted nutritionists, government agencies, and schools, threatening the health and safety of consumers and children. And when they cannot co-opt they choose to misinform, lie, slander, or sue, as when Texas cattlemen sued Oprah Winfrey. Especially frustrating is how, thanks to their successful lobbying and close government connections (there seems to be a revolving door between the Food & Drug Administration and the executive suites of food conglomerates such as Monsanto) the food industry can legally mislabel their products to misinform consumers. This is especially true for vitamin supplements, which can make a lot of outrageous claims without ever having to go through FDA approval.
The only problem with the book is that it is perhaps too right. Since the initial publication of "Food Politics," a lot of other books, sometimes based on the original insights offered in "Food Politics," have been published that gives readers a more comprehensive and disturbing look into the manipulations and machinations of the vast and powerful food industry. And this past summer a documentary called "Food, Inc." came out, which puts in stunning and striking visual context the problems with the food industry. Even Marion Nestle's new book "What to Eat" distills all the insights from her first work.
Reading "Food Politics" then is slightly redundant. That is not the fault of the author. Indeed, it's a testament to how influential the book has become.
Interesting
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Had to read this for a college class on Consumer Science. None the less, this is actually disturbing and eye-opening about the industry. You can really see many of the examples that she points out in current time.
If you enjoy nutrition, food or health, this is something to put on your reading list.
An academic yet engrossing exposé
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I plowed my way through this book across many late-nights at my favorite 24/7 coffee bar, easily ignoring all of the "local atmosphere."
If you can handle heavy academic reading, this book is practically a Woodward & Bernstein thriller -- an extremely engrossing exposé concerning the VERY ugly political underbelly of the American food industry, and how it chugs away to keep all of us as confused as possible about our food choices and what honestly constitutes sound nutritional guidance.
If you're boggled by choices that SHOULD be simple, such as trying to figure out whether it's healthier to eat butter or some chemical facsimile which includes ingredients you couldn't pronounce to save your grandmother's soul, the spotlight on politics in this book will salve your frazzled mind. The decades of political insanity and posturing surrounding something so seemingly simple as [what food pyramid version is permitted in schools] says so much about the ENTIRE industry. Don't feel badly if you're a bit confused about "good nutrition," because you are NOT alone. Scores of millions of Americans feel the EXACT same way ... and Big Food likes it that way!
Nestle's writing does indeed get rather heady in some sections; however, she's challenging decades of contradiction, confusion, obfuscation, and outright lies that Big Food has tried to sell to America, so it really is necessary for her to preemptively buttress herself against anticipated challenges from Big Food and their seemingly-endless supply of lawyers and lobbyists. Ignore the negative reviews.
If heady, heavily-cited reading is NOT your thing, feel free to check out the [similar reading] suggestions, because there will probably arrive some point (or several) at which you REALLY want to throw this book at the wall. Just an honest observation.
Fantastic book, big impact on my eating habits and my life!! If you eat, you should read this.
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This is a wonderful book by nutrition expert Marion Nestle. Reading it really change my life. The information within this book really opened my mind to what is really happening, not just what I learned in undergraduate university nutrition classes. Please read this. Borrow from the library if necessary, but I purchased it and highlighted so many great thoughts so I could show others. If you read any book about health or nutrition, make this the one. (Then read the China Study, by T.Colin Campbell)
Food Policy
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I purchased this book for a course I am taking in food policy and find it a very readable companion to the course. I think it provides a firm grounding in the underlying structures that shape our food landscape, namely the powerful influence of industry over government.
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