Product Description

We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing exposé, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health. The abundance of food in the United States--enough calories to meet the needs of every man, woman, and child twice over--has a downside. Our overefficient food industry must do everything possible to persuade people to eat more--more food, more often, and in larger portions--no matter what it does to waistlines or well-being.
Like manufacturing cigarettes or building weapons, making food is very big business. Food companies in 2000 generated nearly $900 billion in sales. They have stakeholders to please, shareholders to satisfy, and government regulations to deal with. It is nevertheless shocking to learn precisely how food companies lobby officials, co-opt experts, and expand sales by marketing to children, members of minority groups, and people in developing countries. We learn that the food industry plays politics as well as or better than other industries, not least because so much of its activity takes place outside the public view.
Editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, Nestle is uniquely qualified to lead us through the maze of food industry interests and influences. She vividly illustrates food politics in action: watered-down government dietary advice, schools pushing soft drinks, diet supplements promoted as if they were First Amendment rights. When it comes to the mass production and consumption of food, strategic decisions are driven by economics--not science, not common sense, and certainly not health.
No wonder most of us are thoroughly confused about what to eat to stay healthy. An accessible and balanced account, Food Politics will forever change the way we respond to food industry marketing practices. By explaining how much the food industry influences government nutrition policies and how cleverly it links its interests to those of nutrition experts, this pathbreaking book helps us understand more clearly than ever before what we eat and why.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78311 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 472 pages

Amazon.com
In the U.S., we're bombarded with nutritional advice--the work, we assume, of reliable authorities with our best interests at heart. Far from it, says Marion Nestle, whose Food Politics absorbingly details how the food industry--through lobbying, advertising, and the co-opting of experts--influences our dietary choices to our detriment. Central to her argument is the American "paradox of plenty," the recognition that our food abundance (we've enough calories to meet every citizen's needs twice over) leads profit-fixated food producers to do everything possible to broaden their market portion, thus swaying us to eat more when we should do the opposite. The result is compromised health: epidemic obesity to start, and increased vulnerability to heart and lung disease, cancer, and stroke--reversible if the constantly suppressed "eat less, move more" message that most nutritionists shout could be heard.

Nestle, nutrition chair at New York University and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General Report, has served her time in the dietary trenches and is ideally suited to revealing how government nutritional advice is watered down when a message might threaten industry sales. (Her report on byzantine nutritional food-pyramid rewordings to avoid "eat less" recommendations is both predictable and astonishing.) She has other "war stories," too, that involve marketing to children in school (in the form of soft-drink "pouring rights" agreements, hallway advertising, and fast-food coupon giveaways), and diet-supplement dramas in which manufacturers and the government enter regulation frays, with the industry championing "free choice" even as that position counters consumer protection. Is there hope? "If we want to encourage people to eat better diets," says Nestle, "we need to target societal means to counter food industry lobbying and marketing practices as well as the education of individuals." It's a telling conclusion in an engrossing and masterfully panoramic exposé. --Arthur Boehm

From Library Journal
Nestle (chair, nutrition and food studies, NYU) offers an expos‚ of the tactics used by the food industry to protect its economic interests and influence public opinion. She shows how the industry promotes sales by resorting to lobbying, lawsuits, financial contributions, public relations, advertising, alliances, and philanthropy to influence Congress, federal agencies, and nutrition and health professionals. She also describes the food industry's opposition to government regulation, its efforts to discredit nutritional recommendations while pushing soft drinks to children via alliances with schools, and its intimidation of critics who question its products or its claims. Nestle berates the food companies for going to great lengths to protect what she calls "techno-foods" by confusing the public regarding distinctions among foods, supplements, and drugs, thus making it difficult for federal regulators to guard the public. She urges readers to inform themselves, choose foods wisely, demand ethical behavior and scientific honesty, and promote better cooperation among industry and government. This provocative work will cause quite a stir in food industry circles. Highly recommended. Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll., NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From the New England Journal of Medicine, June 20, 2002
As stated in the introduction, Food Politics is about how the food industry influences what we eat and therefore influences our health. It discusses the history of dietary advice and guidance in the 20th century; governmental and regulatory practices; the effect of marketing on nutritional recommendations, food access, and choice; and the promotion of dietary supplements. The book is hard-hitting, revealing, and bound to provoke controversy. I encourage my colleagues in nutrition, food, and health to read this book, not because I agree with all of Nestle's views, but because I believe she has captured issues that deserve debate and is forcing us to consider how others might view them. She challenges us to consider the political environment in which the science of food and nutrition exists. A strength of the book is its style: Nestle tells us a series of engaging and surprising stories and gives us a lively presentation of the politics, as she perceives them, of advice on diet and health during the past century. Nestle clearly states her biases in the preface and in the introduction to each section of the book. Readers should not skip these statements, because they help separate the facts from the author's perceptions and allow readers to judge whether the facts are in accord with her interpretations. Another strength of the book is the rich set of resources Nestle has brought to the task. She examined a vast array of government documents to find key items, but her sources go well beyond these official records. They are augmented by her personal experience in influencing nutrition policy, which is revealed as the story unfolds. The text is rich with quotations and with illustrations used in the promotion of food or dietary recommendations. She does not provide a separate reference list but, rather, cites her sources in footnotes. Because the quotations are not fully placed in context or characterized with names in the text, it is difficult to evaluate whether they are used appropriately. Nestle characterizes the culture of the food industry as one that promotes an "eat more" message. She interprets many actions taken by government, industry, and nutrition professionals as supporting this culture and feels that nutrition advice has failed to promote an "eat less" culture. Most readers will find themselves agreeing with her arguments in many of the cases presented, such as the promotion of soft drinks in schools, but will wonder why she minimizes successful examples of appropriate messages, whether "eat more" or "eat less." For example, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory committees of the 1990s should be applauded for developing an appropriate message advising consumers to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. The 2000 committee should be praised for recognizing that the message on alcohol in the 1995 guidelines was being misinterpreted to mean "consume more alcohol" and for changing the text to correct the problem. Likewise, the 2000 committee decided to define what is meant by low, moderate, and high fat and grappled with emerging data indicating that a low-fat diet is not the most appropriate recommendation for everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Nestle's account of the effort by the National Cattlemen's Association to stop promotion of the Food Guide Pyramid. Ultimately, however, she misses the key lesson learned, since the organization probably did more harm than good to the image of meat in a healthful diet. This fascinating, well-told story is an interesting illustration of how an "eat more" message can backfire. The system undoubtedly deserves criticism, and Nestle is generous in providing it, but it will improve only when we learn what can work better. Throughout the book, Nestle reports connections among the food industry, lobbying groups, and government officials and describes how the food industry sponsors professional societies and meetings, hires consultants, and creates advisory groups. The strong implication is guilt by association. Bringing these associations forward for discussion is important, and in her book Nestle describes professional connections she herself has had with the food industry and how she has disclosed the connections or has mitigated their influence. It is extremely valuable that the author has raised this issue; however, she offers little help to the nutrition community in thinking through the relevant criteria for addressing potential conflicts of interest and the issue of disclosure. What have professional societies done that works well, and what might work better? When corporate funds are used to create a program for nutrition research and education, how do we evaluate the appropriateness and value of that program? What constitutes appropriate disclosure? As a community of scientists, we need to understand and reveal the types of bias we all bring to decision making. I hope this book will encourage that discussion. This book is thought-provoking, and I recommend it. I do not see all the issues in the same way as Nestle does but would welcome an open discussion of the important issues she raises among my colleagues. Barbara O. Schneeman, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2002 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

Customer Reviews

Marion Nestle: Knows her Political Facts about our food!
Marion Nestle is an amazing researcher that worked diligently to unravel the truth about Lobbyists for the food industry, and their effect on the Food Pyramid. Americans are eating today based on the misnomers of a politized Congressional debate. It is the most fascinating read I have ever had. It will not only inform you, but change the way we eat and the way we feed our families. This book has had a tremendous impact on my life and I'm sure it will have the same effect on yours. Since the "Super Size Me" experiment of Morgan Spurlock, who called Marion Nestle his mentor, Americans are more concerned about our food source. Marion Nestles research will not oly help you to understand the problems of food labeling, but teach you what questions we should be asking our selves before we choose what we eat. I have attached a copy of the link to her book. It is a must read. So, be sure to treat yourself and your loved ones to a whole new understanding of how "Political" food truly can be. http://www.amazon.com/Food-Politics-Influences-Nutrition-California/dp/0520254031/ref=cm_cmu_up_add_glance

The same people pushing to "empower individuals" do all they can to disempower you
There's much to say about Nestle's "Food Politics" and "What To Eat," but the overarching message is that the food industries lie compulsively in order to maximize profits. There's no reason to assume that food-company profit maximization would lead to any desirable outcome: they will produce more food every year in the quest for profit growth, and that food will be as artificial and toxic as the laws will allow them. They will resist any food labeling that might harm their sales. This includes:

* "organic" (which implies that some foods are better than others)
* warnings about toxicity (e.g., methylmercury in tuna)
* the USDA food pyramid, which explicitly places junk food at the top and low-profit vegetables near the bottom

They offload the regulatory burden onto consumers: if you're getting fat, it's your own fault. Of course, they say this while they fight tooth and nail against any labeling requirement that might help you choose. And they fight against any regulation that might make you safer at their expense.

And of course there's the advertising. The same companies that tearfully demand your 'freedom to choose' with hand over heart are the same ones that target your children: everything from Saturday-morning cartoon ads to McDonald's sponsorship of Teletubbies to Coca-Cola branded baby bottles. In-depth psychological research understands exactly what will make your child tug at your sleeve in the grocery store and beg for the most profitable sugary cereal. So you have the 'freedom to choose', defended by companies that do all they can to deny it.

Marion Nestle's magisterial books prove these points in extraordinary detail, yet they pull off the trick with an eloquence that makes them read like novels. The basic premise, though, is beyond dispute: food companies exist to maximize shareholder return. Their investors demand growth every year. There's no reason to expect that this demand will work in your favor.

Good information in a dull format
Marion Nestle has a lot of useful and important information in this book; however, her style is very clinical and mundane. I found myself working to stay awake whenever I read the book. I did finish it, because I think it's good knowledge to have, but a better writer could have made the material pop.