Foreword by Michael Pollan
Preface to the 2007 Edition First Edition
Introduction:
The Food Industry and “Eat More”
PART ONE
UNDERMINING DIETARY ADVICE
1. From “Eat More” to “Eat Less,” 1900–1990
2. Politics versus Science: Opposing the Food Pyramid,
1991–1992
3. “Deconstructing” Dietary Advice
PART TWO
WORKING THE SYSTEM
4. Influencing Government: Food Lobbies and Lobbyists
5. Co-opting Nutrition Professionals
6. Winning Friends, Disarming Critics
7. Playing Hardball: Legal and Not
PART THREE
EXPLOITING KIDS, CORRUPTING SCHOOLS
8. Starting Early: Underage Consumers
9. Pushing Soft Drinks: “Pouring Rights”
PART FOUR
DEREGULATING DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS
10. Science versus Supplements: “A Gulf of Mutual
Incomprehension”
11. Making Health Claims Legal: The Supplement Industry’s War with
the FDA
12. Deregulation and Its Consequences
PART FIVE
INVENTING TECHNO-FOODS
13. Go Forth and Fortify
14. Beyond Fortification: Making Foods Functional
15. Selling the Ultimate Techno-Food: Olestra
Conclusion:
The Politics of Food Choice
Afterword:
Food Politics: Five Years Later and Beyond
Appendix: Issues in Nutrition and Nutrition Research
Notes
List of Tables
List of Figures
Index
Marion Nestle is Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University. Author of Nutrition in Clinical Practice (1985), she has served as a nutrition policy advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services and as a member of nutrition and science advisory committees to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. She is the author of Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism (California, 2003), Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine (California, 2010), and Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics (California, 2012), among other books.
"Combining the scientific background of a researcher and the skills
of a teacher, [Nestle] has made a complex subject easy to
understand."
*New York Times*
“The ironically named Nestle does for the entire food industry what
Eric Schlosser did for fast food in Fast Food Nation—a scathing and
sometimes shocking expose of an industry we have taken for granted.
This award-winning book looks at how the sheer volume of food
available in North America has created questionable marketing
practices, to say the least.”
*Toronto Globe & Mail*
“A solid, important treatise. Taking the health effects as given,
it details how food companies undermine public health and
infiltrate institutions that are sworn to protect it. If, after
Marxism’s demise, you need evidence of the pervasive complicity of
government in the amassing of wealth by a few to the detriment of
the many, look no further.”
*American Prospect*
“Nestle’s meticulous, nuanced account traces the connections
between North America’s immense agricultural surpluses, industrial
foods like infant formula and Hamburger Helper, the supersizing of
fast foods, and declines in public health.”
*Women's Review of Books*
“In a country that is being targeted by a food industry that will
make and market any product that sells, even to children,
regardless of its nutritional value or its effect on health, Food
Politics is required reading.”
*Bloomsbury Review*
“Nestle is simply one of the nation’s smartest and most influential
authorities on nutrition and food policy.”
*Sun-Sentinel*
“Nestle covers more ground, wields greater authority, and has
concrete, tough-minded recommendations for change.”
*Seattle Weekly*
"Food Politics is a book that deserves to change national and
international attitudes, as Carson's Silent Spring did in
the 1960s."
*American Journal of Clinical Nutrition*
"Nestle berates the food companies for going to great lengths to
protect what she calls "techno-foods" by confusing the public
regarding distinctions among foods, supplements, and drugs, thus
making it difficult for federal regulators to guard the public. She
urges readers to inform themselves, choose foods wisely, demand
ethical behavior and scientific honesty, and promote better
cooperation among industry and government. This provocative work
will cause quite a stir in food industry circles. Highly
recommended."
*Library Journal*
"In her exquisitely researched book, Nestle details how the food
industry’s tendrils have reached into every aspect of
nutritionists’ work and are suffocating its public health goals.
Food Politics provides rich case studies of how the industry
infiltrates nutrition departments at universities and federal
agencies and intermingles unabashedly with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA)."
*Health Education & Behavior*
"In the tradition of Upton Sinclair, Eric Schlosser and Michael
Pollan, Nestle exposes the dark side of food. A life-giving
substance, food can kill us, and Nestle never loses sight of the
seriousness of this issue throughout the text."
*Food Anthropology*
“Food Politics is a well-researched, thoughtful, and angry book.
Nestle is most eloquent in her analyses of the relationship between
government and industry. . . . An invaluable addition to the
literature.”
*Technology and Culture*
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |