What to Eat
by Marion Nestle
North Point Press; $16
Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics and nutrition professor at New York University, has been fighting the good food fight for years now, and her latest book continues her critical approach to what we put in our bodies. What to Eat sounds like a question, and the book provides many, many answers in over 600 pages.
Food consumers are bombarded by choices; over 30,000 products are offered in many supermarkets, and knowing what is good—both in the nutritional and environmental sense—isn’t easy. In her usual mix of hard information and pointed prose, Nestle examines what the USDA organic rating really means (not that much), how useful the fats in dairy are (not very) and the state of our safety regulations (not very good).
Nestle also advocates educating yourself about nutrition and being aware of who is telling you what to eat. She mentions that many reports on the health properties of certain products come from industry sources. Nestle has always been a smart and able critic of our broken food system, and with this book she offers yet more reasons to follow her advice and start advocating for a better way to eat.
