Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
How do we choose what to eat? Buffeted by health claims--should we, for example, restrict our intake of carbs or fats or both? Is organic food better for us?--we become confused and tune out. In supermarkets we buy semi-consciously, unaware that our choices are carefully orchestrated by sophisticated marketing strategies concerned only with the bottom line. That we should confront such persuasion is the major point made by nutritionist-consumer advocate Marion Nestle in her extraordinary What to Eat, an aisle-by-aisle guide to supermarket buying and thus an anatomy of American food business. "The way food is situated in today's society discourages healthful food choices," Nestle tells us, a fact that finds literal representation in our supermarkets, where food placement--dependant on "slotting fees," guaranteed advertising and other incentives--determines every purchase we make.
Nestle walks readers through every supermarket section--produce, meat, fish, dairy, packaged foods, bottled waters, and more--decoding labels and clarifying nutritional and other claims (in supermarket-speak, for example, "fresh" means most likely to spoil first, not recently picked or prepared), and in so doing explores issues like the effects of food production on our environment, the way pricing works, and additives and their effect on nutrition.
What Nestle reveals is both discouraging and empowering. Through ubiquitous advertising, almost universal food availability, the growth of portion size, and unchecked marketing to kids, we’re encouraged to eat more than we need, with consequent negative impact on our health. Knowledge is indeed power, and Nestle's lively, witty, and thoroughly enlightening book--the work, readers quickly see, of a food lover intent on increasing sensual satisfaction at table as well as promoting health--will help its readers become completely cognizant about food shopping. It's a must for anyone who eats and buys food and wants to do both better. --Arthur Boehm
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Nourishing, and troubling.
Customer Rating:
This is the most credible, impressive book I've read on food. Her advice is actually quite traditional (eat fewer calories, exercise more, watch portion size and saturated fats, read the friggin' ingredient labels), and yet the book feels like a revolution, perhaps due in part to her comprehensiveness in weighing the pros and cons of various foods from multiple angles and her scandalous revelations of the regulatory tugs-of-war. And yet... as I read further and further, I noticed increasingly that the consumer's best response to a vast variety of food conundrums was "write your congressman." Sure, she's right, I guess--much of what we consume is what it is because politicians and regulators make/permit it to be so.
And yet. With all the substantial problems in the world right now, it is daunting for a consumer to invest in a movement that's increasingly not "the big problem." We've seen a positive revolution in food in the past generation. But as we scrimp and save, the Wal-Mart "cheaper is better" food ethic may trump the recent progress of the artisan food producers and purveyors.
All Purpose Guide
Customer Rating:
This is a good all purpose guide to nutrition, including and especially safety concerns. It doesn't just stop with "carrots are a good source of vitamin A, etc" but it goes on to address issues such as how food is processed, handled, and packaged, and how these considerations affect the actual desirabilty of eating those foods. I'd buy it in ADDITION to other nutrition books, not as a standalone.
Taking it all into account.
Customer Rating:
Nestle's book takes on a different view than your average foodie book promoting organic and local foods. She factors in "animal suffering and economic degradation" (Dorothy Kalins, NYTimes Sunday Book Review "Eat Your Vegetables May 28, 2006). I agree with Nestle that you really do vote with your shopping basket. What you buy at the store is what you support in our economy. This is a really eye-opening account of food in America today.
Thorough
Customer Rating:
This book was recommended based on interest in the book "In Defense of Food" which I loved. This book has the information that shows people are too hung up on balancing a diet, when eating FOOD is really what we need to focus on, fruits, vegetables, etc. that give individual bodies nutrients and energy without having to calculate and quantify all elements of food.
A must-have book.
Customer Rating:
This book answers practically every question that today's confused American consumer could possibly have about food. It is valuable information, organized to be very user-friendly. Ms. Nestle cuts through the conflicting information that is available regarding so much of our food supply, and offers clear, sane guidance that will be a benefit to anyone who seeks it.
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