Fear of Food

Name: Fear of Food
Price: 47.95 AUD
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ISBN: 9780226473741

A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat

Harvey Levenstein

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Hardback

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English

University of Chicago Press
15 April 2012

Social & cultural history; 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: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 24mm, Width: 16mm, Spine: 2mm
Weight: 510g
ISBN: 9780226473741
ISBN 10: 0226473740
Pages: 232
Publication Date: 15 April 2012
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
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

""With wit, charm, accessibility, and impeccable scholarship (a powerful and unusual quartet), Harvey Levenstein chronicles the long history of Americans' food fears, tracing their origins, exposing and debunking the self-serving hucksters who promoted them, and, finally, offering his own 'cure': healthy skepticism. It's a riveting record of claims and counter-claims, greed and venality, that will keep you reading and, finally, reassessing your own diet."" -Susan R. Friedland, author of Ribs, Caviar, and The Passover Table""