What to Eat

What to Eat
by Marion Nestle

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Book Summary Information

Author: Marion Nestle
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2007-04-17
ISBN: 0865477388
Number of pages: 624
Publisher: North Point Press

Book Reviews of What to Eat

Book Review: This book has a split personality ...
Summary: 3 Stars

This is really two books that would have been better separated. The author takes us through a supermarket, showing us what to look for on the shelves and what various labeling means. Much of this information is very interesting (she has one of the clearest explanations of what a calorie is that I've ever read; she explains how mercury in fish becomes so toxic to humans). Unfortunately, even though the book is only two years old time has not been kind in other areas. She advises us that after going through a processing plant she has fewer concerns about pre-packaged salads and vegetables (oops!) and she still subscribes to the mostly-debunked link between dietary fat and heart disease (recommending nonfat milk [shudder]).

However, commingled with the useful information are rants about how politics have corrupted our food supply. Again, some of this is very interesting (for instance, due to the efforts of the sugar trade association, in the U.S. getting 25% of our calories from added sugars is considered okay; most other countries cap it at 10%). However, this information isn't helpful as you're wandering the supermarket; it belongs in a separate book and in fact can be found in her book Food Politics. That's where it should be, and removing this would have made the book a much more manageable length.

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Summary of What to Eat

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

Since its publication in hardcover last year, Marion Nestle’s What to Eat has become the definitive guide to making healthy and informed choices about food. Praised as “radiant with maxims to live by” in The New York Times Book Review and “accessible, reliable and comprehensive” in The Washington Post, What to Eat is an indispensable resource, packed with important information and useful advice from the acclaimed nutritionist who “has become to the food industry what . . . Ralph Nader [was] to the automobile industry” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

How we choose which foods to eat is growing more complicated by the day, and the straightforward, practical approach of What to Eat has been praised as welcome relief. As Nestle takes us through each supermarket section—produce, dairy, meat, fish—she explains the issues, cutting through foodie jargon and complicated nutrition labels, and debunking the misleading health claims made by big food companies. With Nestle as our guide, we are shown how to make wise food choices—and are inspired to eat sensibly and nutritiously.

Now in paperback, What to Eat is already a classic—“the perfect guidebook to help navigate through the confusion of which foods are good for us” (USA Today).

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