April 2007
Paperback ISBN 9780865477384
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
A couple of years ago, when I was in for my yearly check-up, I was
describing to my doctor my various intestinal dilemmas as well as my issues
with certain foods. At that point in my life, I was really wanting more
information about food and nutrition in general. He gave me a short list of
books that he recommended I read and on that list was Marion Nestle’s What To Eat. I bought the book and set
it aside. While I didn’t pick it up for another year and a half, I left it
somewhere visible so it’s continued presence would be a constant reminder to
pick the book and read it.
Finally this year I read the book. What took me so long? I didn’t want
to be a victim of scare-mongering and I was very worried that this book would
do that. That reading it would scare me enough that I would be living in fear
of many foods. Instead, I got a thorough education.
It took me about 6 months to read this book. Mostly because there was
a lot of information to take in and I really wanted to take my time with it.
While this book could be used as a reference guide, it’s best read from cover
to cover. The author Marion Nestle has a very impressive resume. She’s written
multiple books about food and food politics, she’s a professor of nutrition and
sociology and has a Ph.D in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health
nutrition (Source: http://www.foodpolitics.com/about/)
. So when you pick up this book, know that you are in good hands.
What to Eat covers a variety of food topics including (in no
particular order):
Fruit & Vegetables
Organic produce
Meat
Fish & Seafood
Eggs
Milk & Dairy
Margarine
Bread
Oils & Fat
Tea & Coffee
Soy Milk
Frozen Foods
Processed Foods
Packaged Foods
Prepared Foods
Snack Foods
Sugars
Cereal
Foods targeted at Children
Infant Formula & Baby Food
Supplements
It would be impossible for me to write in this review all the valuable
bits of information and food for thought that I gleamed for this book. But I’d
like to point out a few that really surprised me.
I think the most difficult chapters for me to read were the ones on
Fish & Seafood. It was the scariest topic of them all especially since
there are many issues with the quality of fish & seafood which comes from
over-fishing, mishandling, pollution, toxins and farming. I gathered from these
sections that fish & seafood as a food group is not as healthy as we think it
is and as a seafood aficionado this made me nervous.
I also learned that for a carnivore the worst thing to eat is another
carnivore. If you are going to eat meat or seafood, make sure what you are
eating one on the lowest rank of the food chain. Nestle made the case by
showing how shark meat can be quite dangerous. Sharks are notorious carnivores
that not only eat herbivores and omnivores but also other carnivores too. If
one small fish carries a toxin and a larger fish carries another toxin and that
larger fish eats the smaller fish, the larger fish will basically be
contaminated with both toxins (or if it’s the same toxins, a double-dose). If a
Shark eats that larger fish, the shark will be carrying the toxins of that
larger fish and the smaller fish that the larger fish has eaten. And sharks eat
a wide variety of fish but also carnivorous mammals too including seals,
dolphins, whales, etc (that eat fish that may or may not eat other fish). So
eating shark meat is quite a gamble because of the multiplication of toxicity!
After I read that, my mind was blown and I ended up having nightmares about
eating shark meat. This was the best lesson in biology though as it made me
understand why humans don’t eat other omnivores and carnivores. (I also correlated
this to mad cow disease and how farmers would grind up diseased & dead
lamb/mutton and put it into cattle feed).
The other interesting chapter that surprised me was the one on
supplements. My father-in-law has been trying to teach everyone about Vitamin D
supplements and both of my parents take various supplements and vitamins on a
regular basis. For years my mom
harassed me about taking multivitamins which I never really took consistently.
Right now, I take a calcium supplement daily and if I’m off a hormonal
medication then I take natural supplements like Phytoestrogen. Marion Nestle
makes the case that no one really needs added vitamins in their diet whether
they be from supplements or from
enriched foods and drinks. Why? Because if you eat a wide variety of foods,
including vegetables and fruits, you most likely do not have a vitamin
deficiency because the variety is already contributing to your basic vitamin
needs. In fact, vitamin deficiencies in non-third world countries are very
rare. She only suggests taking a multi-vitamin if you have one (or a few) days
in which you eat very poorly. Nestle also discusses about how too much of a
vitamin can be a bad thing! Interesting. I wanted to argue with her about other
non-vitamin supplements though. For me, placebo or not, supplements have helped
me immensely with various problems I have. But then again, I’m no expert and I
only know from my own personal experience.
What to Eat is very informative and thorough. You get an important
lesson in food politics and how food companies want to make money off of
consumers regardless of whether it affects your health negatively or not. This
is something I already had some knowledge about but Nestle’s findings are quite
eye-opening. After reading this book, I don’t think I’ll look at food marketing
quite the same way. Nestle does have some bias. She has opinions and she is not
afraid to share them. At certain points I had hoped this book would be more
technical and less biased, but in the end I came to the conclusion that the
book works very well as it is. Nestle shares a lot of her own personal
experience with food as well as her experiences with companies and key figures
in the food industry. It adds some very informative and enlightening details as
well as context.
If you are interested in learning more about food and food politics,
pick up What to Eat! You’ll come out of the experience an enlightened (not
scared) individual who will be empowered to make better food choices for
yourself and your family.
