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Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health, Revised and Expanded Edition (California Studies in Food and Culture)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.4764130973
EAN: 9780520254039
Edition: 2
ISBN: 0520254031
Label: University of California Press
Manufacturer: University of California Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 510
Publication Date: October 15, 2007
Publisher: University of California Press
Studio: University of California Press
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Editorial 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
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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Marion Nestle: Knows her Political Facts about our food!
Marion Nestle is an amazing researcher that worked diligently to unravel the truth about Lobbyists for the food industry, and their effect on the Food Pyramid. Americans are eating today based on the misnomers of a politized Congressional debate. It is the most fascinating read I have ever had. It will not only inform you, but change the way we eat and the way we feed our families. This book has had a tremendous impact on my life and I'm sure it will have the same effect on yours. Since the ... Read More
Rating: - The same people pushing to "empower individuals" do all they can to disempower you
There's much to say about Nestle's "Food Politics" and "What To Eat," but the overarching message is that the food industries lie compulsively in order to maximize profits. There's no reason to assume that food-company profit maximization would lead to any desirable outcome: they will produce more food every year in the quest for profit growth, and that food will be as artificial and toxic as the laws will allow them. They will resist any food labeling that might harm their sales. This includes: ... Read More
Rating:  - Good information in a dull format
Marion Nestle has a lot of useful and important information in this book; however, her style is very clinical and mundane. I found myself working to stay awake whenever I read the book. I did finish it, because I think it's good knowledge to have, but a better writer could have made the material pop.
Rating: - What's next?
When I came back to USA in 1990 from Japan after 10 years, I was a little shocked. It's there are so many obese. I stop seeing proportionate people as I admired once before (since I'm from Japan; we were small and rather plain looking.) What happened! I thought it's that soda-pop as I always watch the countless gallon bottles my next customers are buying at the every grocery shopping. As I was wondering, this nation sued tobacco companies. So I kept wondering, why don't they blame major soda-pop ... Read More
Rating: - A Well-Documented Book, A must read for everybody who eats
I found this book to be very informative about the political workings of the food industry. I agree with several other reviewers that it is a little dull and in an factual style (kind of reminds me of a history book. However I like that kind of reading, so it doesn't bother me.)
This book's basic premise is that the food industry's purpose is to sell as much food as possible. The food industry doesn't care about its consumers and encourages them to eat more than they need, produces lots ... Read More
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