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Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (California Studies in Food and Culture, 3) :: 0520240677
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| 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 Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
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Author: Guest
This book touches upon issues that everyone is aware of but chooses to ignore. The author makes this obvious but in an non-condescending way which is much appreciated. He ties the biases of the food industry in with other industries such as the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries. Drawing the connections between these three and the governmental regulatory agencies that work with/against them respectively (USDA, FDA, ATF), the author illustrates just how much of a problem this is. Not only was I fascinated by the issue, but I found the writing very accessible. Well done and it's too bad more haven't read it.
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Author: Guest
Nestle presents a well researched, balanced description of how our market system in the US can hurt its citizens if proper checks and balances aren't applied. Our system only works if consumers are informed and can act on that information. Instead, it is abundantly evident that food producers (who are after all in the business of making money, not protecting our health)are experts at manipulating our food choices by advertising to children, lobbying for food labels that mislead the public, and generally doing everything they can to relax regulations meant to protect us that may stand in the way of increased revenue. Nestle's research in many ways is analogous to the saga of big tobacco, but food as she points out is much more nuanced -- you can't tell people just stop eating food like you can cigarettes. So who is at fault? Its not just industry, its our political system, our regulating agencies, school boards, and advocates. Nestle's writing is fine, just too detailed for some audiences at some points. Her research seems exhaustive (and is exhaustively referenced) and she speaks from first hand experience. Nestle is courageous for writing this and it will surely become a classic in public health literature.
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Author: Guest
Here's the thing.
As one reviewer mentioned I think the bulk of negative reviewers have not actually read this book.
The author is a nuritionist, who says that despite the really basic nutritional advice of most nutritionists which has not significantly changed over the course of a half century, the public still views nutritional advice as difficult to understand.
Why?
Because the food industry makes more money when it sells more products. It has a vested interest in getting people to at least buy (if not eat) more food. Most importantly, the least healthy foods (i.e. highly processed foods) have the highest profit margins. To ensure profits, they pressure the government to avoid informing the public in an easily understandable format that they should eat less and avoid processed foods.
Is she saying this is the ONLY reason why americans are fat? No. But the fact that many, many, many americans have problems figuring out what the heck to eat is heavily due to the food lobbyists, a fact which she goes into in nauseating detail.
And therein lies the problem.
Nestle is an Academic and she writes like one. Anyone familiar with non-fiction in the style of Nickle and Dimed, Fast Food Nation, or even Island of the Colorblind will find Food Politics irritating. Not because the book is poorly written, per se, but because it's dull.
She obscures critical points between reams of facts, her narrative style plods along instead of floating or skipping, and I frequently felt like hurling the book across the room screaming get to the point already.
But I did finish the book.
Because the message is far more important then the limited medium. This book is critically important in that it hi-lights the sad reality that billions of dollars being spent vying for a place on the tip of your fork. Sadly very little of this money bears your health in mind.
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Author: Guest
"Food Politics" is a really enlightening and educational read for anyone who eats! I was recommended this book by my professor who I became a teaching assistant to (the class is Nutrition in Medicine). Being a foodie who believes in fresh ingredients and minimal processing, this book not only reiterates what I know (and believe), it also presents new information about the competitive food industry. During the time I read the book, I began realizing the food industry's actions on my daily experience, such as grocery shopping. I also realized that they have succeeded brainwashing the "Variety is good for the diet" motto not only to me but also my loved ones.
I got pretty disillusioned with both the government and the food industry after reading this. Not that I've never known about Senate/Congress lobbyists and corruption, it's just that I never realized the extent that it happens! Nevertheless, "Food Politics" is a beneficial read for anyone interested in finding out more about the industry.
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Author: Guest
Government in bed with the industry. Government wins through private sector employment, companies win by selling you dirt cheap harmful garbage. You lose.
I'd take the first 3 reviews submitted with a grain of salt.
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