Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health, Revised and Expanded Edition (California Studies in Food and Culture)
by: Marion Nestle
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Amazon.com Review:
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
Product Description:
An accessible and balanced account, Food Politics laid the groundwork for today's food revolution and changed the way we respond to food industry marketing practices. Now, a new introduction and concluding chapter bring us up to date on the key events in that movement. This pathbreaking, prize-winning book helps us understand more clearly than ever before what we eat and why.
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
Product Description:
An accessible and balanced account, Food Politics laid the groundwork for today's food revolution and changed the way we respond to food industry marketing practices. Now, a new introduction and concluding chapter bring us up to date on the key events in that movement. This pathbreaking, prize-winning book helps us understand more clearly than ever before what we eat and why.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Interesting
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.
Rating: 
- An academic yet engrossing exposé
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. ... Read More
Rating: - Fantastic book, big impact on my eating habits and my life!! If you eat, you should read this.
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, ... Read More
Rating: - Food Policy
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.
Rating: - Amazing
Amazing, well thought out and researched book. I found it to be an interesting book as well. One of the best in the type of genre.
- InterestingHad 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 exposéI 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. ... Read More
- Fantastic book, big impact on my eating habits and my life!! If you eat, you should read this.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, ... Read More
- Food PolicyI 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.
- AmazingAmazing, well thought out and researched book. I found it to be an interesting book as well. One of the best in the type of genre.
