DISCOVERIES
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What to Eat
Marion Nestle
North Point Press: 612 pp., $30
“EAT less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables” and “go easy on junk foods.” Sounds easy, but Marion Nestle, nutritionist-author of “Food Politics” and “Safe Food,” knows we face an alarming number of choices (320,000 food and beverage products in the U.S.), labels (designed to confuse) and advertisements (designed to entice) each time we go to the supermarket. What are PLU codes? What does “certified organic” really mean? Is organic food, a market that could exceed $30 billion a year in 2007, really more healthful? Nestle debunks the myth that organic food is more expensive; she believes it’s better to buy organic, but not necessarily for health reasons. It is a way of voting with our forks for fewer pesticides, cleaner water, richer soil and fuel conservation. Buying locally isn’t easy. In Europe, country-of-origin labeling is required, but our supermarkets don’t have to tell us where the food comes from or how far it has come, important information in determining freshness. Pasteurizing, growth hormones, low-fat versus whole milk, the dangers of corn sweeteners and soda, which fish to eat and why, genetically modified foods and how to spot them, bottled water, transfats, how to avoid unclean, unsafe meat cruelly raised and slaughtered -- it’s all here. Not only is “What to Eat” the most comprehensive guide to the political and nutritional choices we make shopping for food, but it’s also full of up-to-date research on health, including this bottom-line advice: People who eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day face half the cancer risk of people who eat only two.
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The Way We Eat
Why Our Food Choices Matter
Peter Singer and Jim Mason
Rodale: 328 pp., $25.95
WHEN Peter Singer and Jim Mason wrote “Animal Factories” in 1980, they were appalled to find that though up to 40 million animals were annually slaughtered for scientific research, this was “less than two days’ toll in American slaughterhouses, which kill around 10 billion each year.” Singer and Mason note the increasing concern over food choices and ethical consumerism since “Animal Factories” was published. Much of the meat industry (beef, chicken, pork) operates with little transparency, making books like this new one invaluable. The authors interview three American families: one in Arkansas that does most of its food shopping at Wal-Mart; another in Connecticut that tries to make environmentally friendly, ethical choices; and a vegan family in Kansas.
The book describes a recent video made at a Pilgrim’s Pride slaughterhouse in West Virginia, showing employees throwing chickens against the wall and drop-kicking them like footballs. There is a section on whether fish have feelings. Singer and Mason interview Bill Niman, a cofounder of the extremely successful and humane Niman Ranch, and John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods. They review child-labor and forced-labor practices here and abroad, health and safety practices, wage issues, worker rights and fair trade practices, ending with five principles to follow in our food choices. Their book is clear and persuasive: while Marion Nestle lays out choices, the authors of “The Way We Eat” take them a step further, into the realm of ethics.
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The Earth Knows My Name
Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans
Patricia Klindienst
Beacon Press: 246 pp., $26.95
PATRICIA Klindienst’s maternal grandfather came to the United States from Italy in 1907, the same year as Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco and Vanzetti). Inspired by Vanzetti’s letters describing his family’s gardens in Italy, Klindienst goes on a tour of ethnic gardens in America, from those of Pueblo Indians in New Mexico to that of a Khmer family in Amherst, Mass., that fled Cambodia in 1982. She tells of how gardening strengthens people’s ties to the countries they left behind and how these gardens enrich American soil in so many ways. “In their gardens,” she writes in this evocative and hopeful book, “they are home.”
