The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know about Food is Wrong - Barry Glassner
The author of one of my favorite books, The Culture of Fear, has now taken on the food nazis of the world. Eating is the new religion in America. "We worship at the temples of celebrity chefs. We raise our children to believe that certain foods are good and others are bad. We engage in elaborate rituals in preparing meals at home and describe ourselves as sinful if we order a creamy dessert when we eat out" (x). And like religion, outrageous claims are made by "true believers" - claims that cannot be substantiated by research, no matter how loud people shout. The reason: It is notoriously difficult to research long-term eating patterns: "such experiments are difficult to pull off successfully because people have a hard time sticking to mandated diets" (19). Additionally, "[t]he level of measurement error in food-frequency questionnaires is just so big, the results are very hard to interpret" (21). Glassner also shows how "natural" food really isn't that natural, and isn't always better. He also argues that McDonalds has been given a bad rap. Only in a land of plenty would we argue about the ready availability of food. A Starbucks' frappuccino has more calories and fat than a Big Mac, but no one is taking on Starbucks, because the people who buy the Super-Size-Me, Fast-Food-Nation arguments all think Starbucks is a pretty cool place to hangout. In short, Glassner exposes all the bloated rhetoric of the nutritional imperialists. Now, go enjoy a Wendy's Frosty or a thick slice of cheesecake.