Fear of Food

Name: Fear of Food
Price: 29.95 AUD
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ISBN: 9780226054902

A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat

Harvey Levenstein

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English

Chicago University Press
11 April 2013

Social & cultural history; Society & Social Sciences; Food & society; Cookery, food & drink

There may be no greater source of anxiety for Americans

today than

the question of what to eat and drink. Are eggs the perfect

protein, or

are they cholesterol bombs? Is red wine good for my heart

or bad for my

liver? Will pesticides, additives, and processed foods

kill me? Here

with some very rare and very welcome advice is food

historian Harvey

Levenstein: Stop worrying!

In Fear of Food Levenstein

reveals the people and interests

who have created and exploited these

worries, causing an extraordinary

number of Americans to allow fear to

trump pleasure in dictating their

food choices. He tells of the

prominent scientists who first warned

about deadly germs and poisons in

foods, and their successors who

charged that processing foods robs

them of life-giving vitamins and

minerals. These include Nobel

Prize–winner Eli Metchnikoff, who advised

that yogurt would enable

people to live to be 140 by killing the

life-threatening germs in their

intestines, and Elmer McCollum, the

“discoverer” of vitamins, who

tailored his warnings about vitamin

deficiencies to suit the food

producers who funded him. Levenstein also

highlights how large food

companies have taken advantage of these

concerns by marketing their

products to combat the fear of the moment.

Such examples include the

co-opting of the “natural foods” movement,

which grew out of the belief

that inhabitants of a remote Himalayan

Shangri-la enjoyed remarkable

health and longevity by avoiding the very

kinds of processed food these

corporations produced, and the

physiologist Ancel Keys, originator of

the Mediterranean Diet, who

provided the basis for a powerful coalition

of scientists, doctors, food

producers, and others to convince

Americans that high-fat foods were

deadly.

In Fear of Food, Levenstein

offers a much-needed voice of

reason; he expertly questions these

stories of constantly changing

advice to reveal that there are no

hard-and-fast facts when it comes to

eating. With this book, he hopes

to free us from the fears that cloud so

many of our food choices and

allow us to finally rediscover the joys of

eating something just

because it tastes good.

By: Harvey Levenstein
Imprint: Chicago University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 15mm, Spine: 1mm
Weight: 312g
ISBN: 9780226054902
ISBN 10: 022605490X
Pages: 228
Publication Date: 11 April 2013
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Harvey Levenstein is professor emeritus of history at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He has published a number of books on American history, including Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet and Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America.

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

""When it comes to food, there are two large categories of eaters: those who do not worry about what they eat but should, and those who do worry about what they eat but should not. In Fear of Food, Harvey Levenstein focuses on the latter group, taking readers through a succession of American fads and panics, from an epidemic of 'germophobia' at the start of the twentieth century to fat phobia at its end. He exposes the instigators of these panics: not only the hucksters and opportunists but also the scientists and health experts."" (Times Literary Supplement)""