Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat

Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat

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This article is also available for rental through DeepDyve. Jun 07, Larissa rated it liked it. I had often referred to myself as a picky eater, the kind of person that only likes good food. Of course I qualified the word good by saying things like healthy, local, organic, or even just tasty. She tells us she complained about things touching on her plate, steered clear of any food with a skin and more, subsisting on a narrow list of approved items from the four food groups.

Just the cherry from the fruit cup please.

A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat

Lucianovic had ways to manage the bad foods on her plate; she had places to hide them try the books in the living room and physical techniques to swallow them deep breaths and lots of water. She was a food vanishing magician. Chunks of tomatoes, like in salsa, are fine, but a quarter of a tomato is too much.

What about slices of tomatoes? Disappointed with her results, she turns to Dr. Once there, Lucianovic learns about TAS2r38, one of twenty-five bitter taste receptor genes we inherit, one from each of our parents. And this is where taste gets more complicated.

In addition to TAS2r38, Lucianovic learns about a newly discovered sixth taste. Until recently, we learn, our concept of taste was built on sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. The author does provide some very plausible reasons kids are picky: How does a non-scientist explain why people eat what they eat and is it at all possible to explain without being anecdotal?

Both on the kid level, how do you get them to eat their vegetables? And on the adult level, how do you manage telling people you have specific needs? The book is cute, but too light and flip for this picky eater, who wanted an Aha moment along with her small yield, heirloom lima beans from California. Review originally published on The Inquisitive Eater: Aug 02, April rated it really liked it Shelves: Reading this was an eye opening experience for me.

I already knew that the government and corporations had a lot to do with how food is marketed, but I didn't realize how involved they were until now. And it's all comes down to one thing: During the Reading this was an eye opening experience for me. During the early 's yogurt was hailed as a wonder product, followed up by vitamins. Pasteurized milk and citrus fruits were pushed on the public as "protective foods".

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More recently we're still in it a low-fat craze in order to combat heart disease. The link between fat and heart disease has recently been debunked, but mainstream society for the most part still believes it, because the food corporations and the government want you to believe it. The American Heart Association charges companies vast sums of money to use their seal of approval on food products like sugary cereals so that they are benefiting. And the food companies benefit because people want to buy products with the AHA's endorsement.

The drug companies are making millions on their cholesterol lowering drugs. This isn't pure science at work or corporations wanting to do what is right for people.

Vitamin E was a big thing for a while, and now we're told that it's not safe in large amounts. Right now we're in the midst of a gluten-free and a Vitamin D craze.

The interesting thing about all of these fads and the so called "proven" outcomes of scientific studies is that there is always money involved. Studies haven't been properly done with control groups and scientists make things up.

If a scientist says it's so, then food companies jump on board so that they can profit , the government pushes it, the drug companies come up with some way to make money from it and the public believes it. This book is well researched and documented. It's a fairly quick read with small pages. It reinforces my belief that we need to get back to foods how nature intended them - raw dairy products, grass fed beef, free range eggs, organic fruits and vegetables, whole grains - and stop letting big corporations and the government tell us what is safe and healthy.

Anyone with a brain will realize that a sugary cereal isn't good for them just because the AHA has their seal on it. The topics covered in this book: Nov 10, April rated it really liked it. Fascinating look at food scares in America throughout history. Great read for anyone who rolls their eyes every time there is a news story breathlessly telling everyone what to eat.

Journal of Social History

Even better read if you feel the need to listen to all of that conflicting advice. Calls for self-denial inevitably tap into the Puritan streak that still runs deep in American Culture. Left wing exposures of the dangers in the food supply often emerge from a worldview that sees the nefarious machinations of big business at the root of all that is wrong with America. Aug 26, Holly rated it really liked it.

This book is a very sensible look into the social, scientific, commercial, and political factors that drive and influence America's food trends and fads and the final section, entitled "Coda," is a common sense approach to navigating new nutritional guidelines, media reports and medical advice regarding diet and disease. Though the book never mentions the Weston A. Price Foundation, it made me appreciate their approach, which in a nut shell is: Just Eat Real Food Jun 17, Dan rated it really liked it.

This slim, little book is loaded with more eye-opening information than I could possibly have ever hoped for. Harvey Levenstein does a wonderful job of tracing many of the most outrageous food scares and dietary claims back to their respective sources, and these sources are more often than not: Levenstein's writing appeals to me because he doesn't for the most part pass judgment, he simply states the fact This slim, little book is loaded with more eye-opening information than I could possibly have ever hoped for.

Fear of Food

Just a pinch, though — too much could be bad for you. Fear of Food will give you just the push to do so. Harvey Levenstein has fun and the book is entertaining. Levenstein, a professor emeritus at McMaster University in Ontario, writes in straightforward narrative prose about the waves of anxiety about food that have swept across the United States from the s until the present day, from the menace posed by fresh fruit and vegetables since flies landed on them in open-air markets to lipophobia with any consumption of high-fat foods regarded as a form of suicidal behavior.

Not that you can always tell them apart. We are frightened of cheeseburgers, and only after a large helping of time and soothing information could we ever eat them again without guilt. Fear of Food lays out a century of American nutritional beliefs as a succession of contradictory orthodoxies, always hysterical and typically fleeting. One wrong idea gives way to the next, both supported by surprisingly meager evidence. In this punchy, entertaining account, he reveals how US consumers have suffered for decades from anxiety over the provenance of a pork chop or the fat in fromage frais.

An army of scientists, he says, stoked fear about everything from germs and a lack of vitamins to additives and industrial processing, inadvertently fostering the eating disorder that affects modern US society. Levenstein calls for moderation in all things — including moderation — to regain the joy of eating. Fear of Food is a delicious book. The great value in Fear of Food , however, is likely the realization that poor science never seriously undermined official dogma. After all, they had a consensus!

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