Customer Reviews

Consumed: Why Americans Hate, Love, and Fear Food

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Excellent, wonderful book. Cuts through all the garbage and clearly shows us why we, as Americans, are so fat. Thought provoking,intelligently written, a must read for anyone who wonders why there are so many conflicting reports on weight loss. Completely freed me of my many food obsessions and enabled me to lose (forever) 40 pounds,while ONLY eating foods I enjoy. I can't thank the author enough.

An interesting book-length essay on the politics of food science and culture in the United States. Stacy looks at the weird ways Americans are altering their diets in order to measure up to some imagined nutritional ideal. She interviews several scientists, chefs and food writers who claim that the result is a pathological and cultural fear of food that brings about the very problems that these altered diets were meant to avoid. Along the way, the book pauses to talk with the inventor of Olestra, the fat substitute that failed abysmally in the marketplace, and with the head of the nation's leading vegetarian advocacy group. This is a good companion volume to the last few chapters of Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, and a necessary waystation for anyone contemplating a radical change in diet.

An entertaining, if at times slightly disorganized look at the history and current state of America's food fads and misguided obsessions in the name of nutrition. Written in 1994, some of the things the author discusses can already seem a little dated since food fads live and die so quickly but the overall book is still just as relevant if not more so now.

Forget about this book. It goes on and on and on... Did I mention it's a little repetitive too?