Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

Nestle presents a well researched, balanced description of how our market system in the US can hurt its citizens if proper checks and balances aren't applied. Our system only works if consumers are informed and can act on that information. Instead, it is abundantly evident that food producers (who are after all in the business of making money, not protecting our health)are experts at manipulating our food choices by advertising to children, lobbying for food labels that mislead the public, and generally doing everything they can to relax regulations meant to protect us that may stand in the way of increased revenue. Nestle's research in many ways is analogous to the saga of big tobacco, but food as she points out is much more nuanced -- you can't tell people just stop eating food like you can cigarettes. So who is at fault? Its not just industry, its our political system, our regulating agencies, school boards, and advocates. Nestle's writing is fine, just too detailed for some audiences at some points. Her research seems exhaustive (and is exhaustively referenced) and she speaks from first hand experience. Nestle is courageous for writing this and it will surely become a classic in public health literature.

Nutrition expert Marion Nestle's "Food Politics" explains how the formula for a healthy diet hasn't changed. She advises that one should eat more plant-based foods (fruits, vegetables and whole grains) and less meat, dairy and sweets. But this message collides with the interests of the food-industrial complex, which makes the bulk of its profits by selling relatively expensive processed foods. The book examines how corporations have successfully fought the health message by using a number of overt and covert tactics to further their objectives at the public's expense. In fact, this business success story has resulted in a generation of Americans who are significantly overweight compared with their predecessors. Nestle shows that public relations and government lobbying result in obfuscation and mixed messages about the relative values of certain foods; this generally confuses Americans and makes it difficult to get the "eat less" message. Interestingly, she reveals that the amount of sweets and snack foods consumed are in almost exact proportion to the advertising dollars spent promoting these foods, suggesting that limits on advertising junk food to children might be a reasonable first step in addressing this problem.But Nestle is particularly critical of the criminally poor quality of the nation's public school lunch program and the "pouring rights" contracts struck with soft drink companies by cash-starved school districts. Our country's apparent unwilingness to provide nutritious meals to our schoolchildren is shameful, and Nestle should be congratulated for bringing the situation to light. Other noteworthy sections of the book address the deregulation of dietary supplements and the invention of "techno-foods", ie foods that have been fortified with vitamins, minerals or herbal ingredients. The overall picture is one of regulators on the defensive and huckster capitalism run rampant. While it was disturbing but not too surprising to learn about relatively obscure supplement makers making absurd claims for products that have little scientifically proven value, it was somewhat amusing to see a reprint of a short-lived advertisement for Heinz ketchup that promoted its supposed cancer-fighting properties. It appears there are no limits to what kinds of food products might be similarly reinvented by marketers in their quest for higher profits.In the closing chapter, Nestle proposes a number of useful solutions. Her ideas are reasonable and display a maturity gained through many years spent in government and academia. In an environment where food choices and information surrounding food products are increasingly difficult to understand, let's hope that this book inspires us all to demand greater accountability from the food companies that feed us. Highly recommended!

This book is simply essential. It exposes many of the myths we've been led to believe about how food regulation occurs, and what nutritional advice is valued, and which is discarded. It's not a "conspiracy theory," although one might start to form that impression after the first 50 or so pages, all on one's own. Food companies and lobbyists, lazy/venal academics, complaisant nutritionists and greedy marketers all get the sharp end of the knife in this excellent book. Marion Nestle is superbly qualified to write this book, and has put together an excellent case illustrating how food issues have been politicized for years, leading to our current epidemic of obesity and diet-related diseases.If you ever wanted to know why USDA is so hopelessly weak about nutrition issues, or how the FDA had its teeth pulled, just dive in and find out. 'Fast Food Nation' is almost trivial in comparison. The chapters on the manipulations of soft drinks companies in the school system, and the activities of 'supplement' peddlers will really shock you.Buy one for any friend of yours who has the slightest doubt about the truth of the following nutrition message: 'eat less,' and 'eat less non-nutritious junk' in particular. If you don't accept that message, you have been *brainwashed*, and this book will show you just how it happened.

In Sheldon M Rampton's review, above, he hits the nail right on the head (and no, I don't know Sheldon). The food industry is desperate to prevent the kind of backlash that's been visitng McDonald's in the wake of the (easily verifiable) truths revealed by "Fast Food Nation." But they shouldn't.This book is not one of those "let me show you how yucky the kitchens are" books whose only purpose is to shock you and not really do any good in the end. What this book does is show you the "man behind the curtain" you're not supposed to see (remember the Wizard of Oz?) in terms we can all understand, and reveals the wide discrepancy between the way the food industry works and the way we all (want to) think it does.Is this a struggle in vain? It might seem so at first. And yet, as mighty as the McDonalds "Goliath" seemed to be before FFN came out, they have quickly responded to the public's outcry, and they're doing wonderful things now that they realize that good citizenship can still be good for business. Let's hope that the rest of the food industry can learn the same lesson as they did.Read this book, and the food industry will start paying LOTS of attention to the lesson.You'll be glad you read this book.

For what it's worth, potential readers of Nestle's book should note that the first three "reader reviews" of this book are pretty obviously cranked out by some food industry PR campaign. To begin with, they were all submitted on the same date, February 22 -- "reader reviews" of a book that isn't even scheduled to go on sale until March 4! For another thing, they all hit on the same food industry "message points": that critics are "nagging nannies" whipping up "hysteria" on behalf of "greedy trial lawyers," etc. February 22 is also the date that noted industry flack Steven Milloy of the "Junk Science Home Page" (...) wrote a review trashing Nestle's book. Milloy is a former tobacco lobbyist and front man for a group created by Philip Morris, which has been diversifying its tobacco holdings in recent years by buying up companies that make many of the fatty, sugar-laden foods that Nestle is warning about. (...)I haven't even had a chance yet to read Nestle's book myself, but it irritates me to see the food industry's PR machine spew out the usual (...) every time someone writes something they don't like. If they hate her this much, it's probably a pretty good book.