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Book Review

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

by Marion Nestle

Winner of the 2003 James Beard Foundation Award for Best Literary Cookbook

We all see the advertising and the competition on supermarket shelves, all in competition for our dollars. Advertisers create appealing ads, supermarkets use psychology to place products to gain our attention to increase sales. While manufacturers claim added value, taking a low cost grain and turning into a high priced sugar cereal or snack. Its all about profit, profit, profit and nothing else. It has nothing to do with health or anyones well-being.

The food industry does everything possible to persuade all of us to eat more, and more food translate more often, in ever larger portions without concern to what it does to peoples waistlines or our health. Nestle demonstrates how lobbying, public relations, political maneuvering and advertising work against public health goals and have helped create a population that's eating itself sick. Manufactures often use shortcuts in food processing adding colors, flavors, sugars and fat for added appeal to the consumer. If that doesn't work, they use clever colorful ads to convince people to buy, buy and consume in ever increasing amounts. The food industry is very big business with companies generating almost $900 billion in sales in 2000.

The book is revealing as Marion Nestle worked at the Department of Health and Human Service as a nutrition policy advisor. Her insight from the inside gives rise to the question, if the government is looking out for us, who is? The answer is, no one-other than yourself. The book is revealing and very insightful and well worth a read to educate yourself and hopefully gets you to make better choices in the process.

Buy a Copy of: Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

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