Marion Nestle

Pioneering scholar Marion Nestle joins forces with former cereal executive Lisa Sutherland to examine what cereal boxes reveal about American culture and food politics. If you want to understand how the food business works, just have a look at a box of breakfast cereal. Hardly anything on supermarket shelves is bigger, bolder, or more deliberately designed. The fiercely competitive industry that brings us Cheerios, Froot Loops, and Trix sells a distinctly American dream: indulgence and health in one convenient package. Cereal boxes chronicle our shifting national obsessions with health, ingredients, dietary advice, and American culture. They show us what sells food: cartoons for kids, athletes for men, weight loss for women. And hidden in the history of cereal package designs, we find clues to the corporate lobbying that shapes agricultural policy, health claims, and labeling regulations. Sugar Coated unboxes the influence of cereal companies on food policy and the power of marketing, revealing, in the process, why Big Food is so good at selling profitable products regardless of their effects on health.

A thoroughly revised classic, What to Eat Now is a field guide to food shopping in America, and a treatise on how to eat well and deliciously. What to Eat Now is a clear-eyed, no-nonsense guide to the most important food questions on our plate today. How do we make informed dietary choices for ourselves, our families, and our communities? In the twenty years since Marion Nestle's groundbreaking What to Eat first came out, food has undergone a radical change. The emergence of techno foods, the growth of corporate organics, and a surge of interest in food-delivery services reignited by the pandemic are just a few of the things that have altered how we think about how we eat. The typical American supermarket carries more than thirty thousand products. How do you choose? Misinformation, disinformation, and corporate misdirection play a crucial and hard-to-see role in how the average shopper thinks about and chooses food. In an aisle-by-aisle guide, Nestle, America's preeminent nutritionist and a founding figure in American food studies, takes us through the American supermarket. With persistence, wit, and common sense, she establishes the basics of good nutrition, food safety, and ethical and sustainable eating, and gives readers a close-up look at the web of interests--from supermarket slotting policies to multinational food corporations to lobbying groups--that food has to navigate before it gets to your shopping basket. Above all else, What to Eat Now is a defense of real food and of the value of eating deliciously, mindfully, and responsibly.

America's leading nutritionist teaches you how to navigate the fish counter. A standalone extract from the newly revised edition of her groundbreaking What to Eat (which is being reissued as What to Eat Now).Marion Nestle, America's preeminent nutritionist and the scholar widely credited with establishing the field of modern American food studies, takes us through every aspect of how we grow, market, shop for, store, label, and eat fish in America. With her trademark persistence and unerring eye for detail, Nestle pulls the curtain back on the complicated routes that fish have to go through to make it to our supermarket fish counter. What is the history of methylmercury contamination in our fish supplies? How have government agencies dealt with it in the past? How have they communicated its dangers to us, and how do they do that now? What should we consider when we think about food safety and fish? How healthy is fish, in fact? Marion Nestle answers these and many more questions at the heart of how we consume fish. These chapters are a master class for anyone looking to eat more sustainably, mindfully, and with a full awareness of the many complicated factors at play when you're standing at the fish counter trying to make a decision about what fish you ought to buy for your dinner. The Fish Counter is part of the Picador Shorts series "Oceans, Rivers, and Streams" in which excerpts from beloved classics speak to our relationship with our water bodies, great and small.

An introduction to the burgeoning field of food studies Popular and intellectual interest in food is on the rise. The breadth of concerns surrounding food ranges from animal welfare and climate change's impact on food production to debates on the healthfulness of carbohydrates and fats, and fair compensation for restaurant and farm workers. Not only is there an expanding conversation about the ways in which we produce and consume our food, but there is growing attention being placed on the myriad ways in which food expresses and shapes shifting identities. Practicing Food Studies details the turn of the twenty-first century development and flourishing of food studies as a multidisciplinary field, focusing on its establishment at New York University. Food studies scholars have come from various fields such as history, sociology, economics, political science, nutrition, or public policy, but often felt limited by the conventions of their traditional discipline. Many gravitated to food studies to be able to describe and critically examine their specific areas of interest beyond the borders of academic disciplines. This volume explores the history of knowledge in which NYU Food Studies emerged, providing the opportunity to reflect on how academic fields are created and evolve as a response to institutional constraints and opportunities, the landscape of ideas, social movements, and public conversations. Practicing Food Studies is a compelling collection of essays compiling the research, ideas, and experiences of faculty members and graduates of the NYU Food Studies program—mapping the paths for intellectual and social engagement with food systems and its most urgent issues.

An introduction to the burgeoning field of food studies Popular and intellectual interest in food is on the rise. The breadth of concerns surrounding food ranges from animal welfare and climate change's impact on food production to debates on the healthfulness of carbohydrates and fats, and fair compensation for restaurant and farm workers. Not only is there an expanding conversation about the ways in which we produce and consume our food, but there is growing attention being placed on the myriad ways in which food expresses and shapes shifting identities. Practicing Food Studies details the turn of the twenty-first century development and flourishing of food studies as a multidisciplinary field, focusing on its establishment at New York University. Food studies scholars have come from various fields such as history, sociology, economics, political science, nutrition, or public policy, but often felt limited by the conventions of their traditional discipline. Many gravitated to food studies to be able to describe and critically examine their specific areas of interest beyond the borders of academic disciplines. This volume explores the history of knowledge in which NYU Food Studies emerged, providing the opportunity to reflect on how academic fields are created and evolve as a response to institutional constraints and opportunities, the landscape of ideas, social movements, and public conversations. Practicing Food Studies is a compelling collection of essays compiling the research, ideas, and experiences of faculty members and graduates of the NYU Food Studies program—mapping the paths for intellectual and social engagement with food systems and its most urgent issues.

"A chronicle of hard work and a public health resource, Slow Cooked is also proof that it’s never too late."—New York Times?Marion Nestle reflects on her late-in-life career as a world-renowned food politics expert, public health advocate, and a founder of the field of food studies after facing decades of low expectations. In this engrossing memoir, Marion Nestle reflects on how she achieved late-in-life success as a leading advocate for healthier and more sustainable diets. Slow Cooked recounts of how she built an unparalleled career at a time when few women worked in the sciences, and how she came to recognize and reveal the enormous influence of the food industry on our dietary choices. By the time Nestle obtained her doctorate in molecular biology, she had been married since the age of nineteen, dropped out of college, worked as a lab technician, divorced, and become a stay-at-home mom with two children. That's when she got started. Slow Cooked charts her astonishing rise from bench scientist to the pinnacles of academia, as she overcame the barriers and biases facing women of her generation and found her life's purpose after age fifty. Slow Cooked tells her personal story—one that is deeply relevant to everyone who eats, and anyone who thinks it's too late to follow a passion.

"There is no one better to ask than Marion, who is the leading guide in intelligent, unbiased, independent advice on eating, and has been for decades."––Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything Let’s Ask Marion is a savvy and insightful question-and-answer collection that showcases the expertise of food politics powerhouse Marion Nestle in exchanges with environmental advocate Kerry Trueman. These informative essays show us how to advocate for food systems that are healthier for people and the planet, moving from the politics of personal dietary choices, to community food issues, and finally to matters that affect global food systems. Nestle has been thinking, writing, and teaching about food systems for decades, and her impact is unparalleled. Let’s Ask Marion provides an accessible survey of her opinions and conclusions for anyone curious about the individual, social, and global politics of food.

The food system is broken, but there is a revolution underway to fix it. Bite Back presents an urgent call to action and a vision for disrupting corporate power in the food system, a vision shared with countless organizers and advocates worldwide. In this provocative and inspiring new book, editors Saru Jayaraman and Kathryn De Master bring together leading experts and activists who are challenging corporate power by addressing injustices in our food system, from wage inequality to environmental destruction to corporate bullying.In paired chapters, authors present a problem arising from corporate control of the food system and then recount how an organizing campaign successfully tackled it. This unique solutions-oriented book allows readers to explore the core contemporary challenges embedded in our food system and learn how we can push back against corporate greed to benefit workers and consumers everywhere.

The food system is broken, but there is a revolution underway to fix it. Bite Back presents an urgent call to action and a vision for disrupting corporate power in the food system, a vision shared with countless organizers and advocates worldwide. In this provocative and inspiring new book, editors Saru Jayaraman and Kathryn De Master bring together leading experts and activists who are challenging corporate power by addressing injustices in our food system, from wage inequality to environmental destruction to corporate bullying.In paired chapters, authors present a problem arising from corporate control of the food system and then recount how an organizing campaign successfully tackled it. This unique solutions-oriented book allows readers to explore the core contemporary challenges embedded in our food system and learn how we can push back against corporate greed to benefit workers and consumers everywhere.

The debate over genetically modified organisms: health and safety concerns, environmental impact, and scientific opinions.Since they were introduced to the market in the late 1990s, GMOs (genetically modified organisms, including genetically modified crops), have been subject to a barrage of criticism. Agriculture has welcomed this new technology, but public opposition has been loud and scientific opinion mixed. In GMOs Decoded, Sheldon Krimsky examines the controversies over GMOs-health and safety concerns, environmental issues, the implications for world hunger, and the scientific consensus (or lack of one). He explores the viewpoints of a range of GMO skeptics, from public advocacy groups and nongovernmental organizations to scientists with differing views on risk and environmental impact.Krimsky explains the differences between traditional plant breeding and "molecular breeding" through genetic engineering (GE); describes early GMO products, including the infamous Flavr Savr tomato; and discusses herbicide-, disease-, and insect-resistant GE plants. He considers the different American and European approaches to risk assessment, dueling scientific interpretations of plant genetics, and the controversy over labeling GMO products. He analyzes a key 2016 report from the National Academies of Sciences on GMO health effects and considers the controversy over biofortified rice (Golden Rice)-which some saw as a humanitarian project and others as an exercise in public relations. Do GMO crops hold promise or peril? By offering an accessible review of the risks and benefits of GMO crops, and a guide to the controversies over them, Krimsky helps readers judge for themselves.

Whenever we turn on the TV, flip a page in a magazine, or glance at a flyer in the grocery store, we are constantly bombarded with nutritional advice. Almond products can boost your memory! Milk helps build up your bones! Cereal is part of a doctor-approved balanced breakfast for growing girls and boys! Study after study tells us what we should eat, how much, and when. Words like "superfood" and "guilt free" convince us that we're making the right choice when we pluck an item off the shelf and head for the checkout line. We count on nutrition science to guide us through the overwhelming choices in our local grocery store and helps us make the best decisions for our health.Except it often doesn't. Many of these studies we rely on to make decisions are not funded by unbiased third parties-they're actually funded by companies seeking to buoy their own products. As renowned food expert Marion Nestle reveals in Unsavory Truth, most nutrition societies, committees, and departments are actually in the food industry's pocket. Whether it's a study claiming moderate exercise is enough to cancel out the calories in sugary sodas (backed by Coca-Cola) or a report about how blueberries can reduce the risk of erectile dysfunction (backed by the US Highbush Blueberry Council), the food industry has learned how to turn selective disclosure and partisan probes into major profit. Like Big Pharma has corrupted medical science, so Big Food has corrupted nutrition. In a nation where more than two-thirds of adults and one-third of children are considered overweight or obese, it's never been more important to put our public health first. With stricter legislation for food companies and researchers, stricter policies for societies and journals, and better consumer education, Nestle argues that we have a fighting chance to get our country's nutrition back on track.With riveting prose and unmatched investigative rigor, Unsavory Truth reveals how big food companies took over nutrition science-and how we can take it back.

Sodas are astonishing products. Little more than flavored sugar-water, these drinks cost practically nothing to produce or buy, yet have turned their makers--principally Coca-Cola and PepsiCo--into a multibillion-dollar industry with global recognition, distribution, and political power. Billed as "refreshing," "tasty," "crisp," and "the real thing," sodas also happen to be so well established to contribute to poor dental hygiene, higher calorie intake, obesity, and type-2 diabetes that the first line of defense against any of these conditions is to simply stop drinking them. Habitually drinking large volumes of soda not only harms individual health, but also burdens societies with runaway healthcare costs. So how did products containing absurdly inexpensive ingredients become multibillion dollar industries and international brand icons, while also having a devastating impact on public health? In Soda Politics, the 2016 James Beard Award for Writing & Literature Winner, Dr. Marion Nestle answers this question by detailing all of the ways that the soft drink industry works overtime to make drinking soda as common and accepted as drinking water, for adults and children. Dr. Nestle, a renowned food and nutrition policy expert and public health advocate, shows how sodas are principally miracles of advertising; Coca-Cola and PepsiCo spend billions of dollars each year to promote their sale to children, minorities, and low-income populations, in developing as well as industrialized nations. And once they have stimulated that demand, they leave no stone unturned to protect profits. That includes lobbying to prevent any measures that would discourage soda sales, strategically donating money to health organizations and researchers who can make the science about sodas appear confusing, and engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to create goodwill and silence critics. Soda Politics follows the money trail wherever it leads, revealing how hard Big Soda works to sell as much of their products as possible to an increasingly obese world. But Soda Politics does more than just diagnose a problem--it encourages readers to help find solutions. From Berkeley to Mexico City and beyond, advocates are successfully countering the relentless marketing, promotion, and political protection of sugary drinks. And their actions are having an impact--for all of the hardball and softball tactics the soft drink industry employs to maintain the status quo, soda consumption has been flat or falling for years. Health advocacy campaigns are now the single greatest threat to soda companies' profits. Soda Politics provides readers with the tools they need to keep up pressure on Big Soda in order to build healthier and more sustainable food systems.

America's broken food system has provoked an outcry from consumer advocates seeking to align food policies with public health objectives. This book examines both sides of the conflict for solutions.Many believe that America's food system is in dire need of reform, with concerns ranging from the obesity epidemic to exploitative labor practices and negative environmental impact. This eye-opening book answers provocative questions about what changes are needed, who is advocating the changes, what parties are opposing these changes (and why), and what a new food system would look like. Organized into three sections, the work identifies the problems with the current system, reviews the changing landscape of food policy, and suggests workable solutions for progress.Washington insider Steve Clapp takes a comprehensive look at the struggle over the future of food. He examines the vision for a reformed national food policy that includes calculating the true cost of food, providing universal access to healthful food, adopting farm policies supporting public health and environmental objectives, improving food safety, paying fair wages to food employees, treating food animals with compassion, and reducing the food system's carbon footprint. The book explores the ways in which these issues can be resolved, drawing upon lessons learned from the early food advocates of the 1960s and 1970s.

New York is hailed as one of the world’s “food capitals” but the history of food-making in the city has been mostly lost. Since the establishment of the first Dutch brewery, the commerce and culture of food enriched New York and promoted its influence on America and the world by driving innovations in machinery and transportation and shaping international trade. Immigrant ingenuity re-created Old World flavours and spawned familiar brands. Food historian Joy Santlofer re-creates the texture of everyday life in a growing metropolis. With an eye-opening focus on bread, sugar, drink and meat, Food City recovers the fruitful tradition behind today’s local brewers and confectioners, recounting how food shaped a city and a nation.

Sodas are astonishing products. Little more than flavored sugar-water, these drinks cost practically nothing to produce or buy, yet have turned their makers - principally Coca-Cola and PepsiCo - into multibillion dollar industries with global recognition, distribution, and political power. So how did something so cheap come to mean so much and to have such devastating health and food policy consequences? Soda Politics is a story of the American food system at work, written by the incomparable NYU scholar and public health champion Marion Nestle. It is the first book to focus on the history, politics, nutrition, and health impact of soda, asking how we created this system, what its problems are, and what we can do to change things. Coke and Pepsi spend billions of dollars a year on advertising and lobbying to prevent any measures to limit soda, a product billed as "refreshing," "tasty," "crisp," and "the real thing" that also happens to be a major cause of health problems, from obesity to Type II diabetes. They target minorities, poor people, and children, and are involved in land and water grabs in underdeveloped countries, where they also have redoubled their efforts at building their market share. In fact, the marketing practices of soda companies are eerily similar to that of cigarette companies - both try to sell as much as possible, regardless of the health consequences, in any way that they can. And the public is starting to scrutinize sugary sodas in the same way that they do cigarettes. Soda consumption is falling, and Americans are only partially replacing soda with other sugary drinks. This did not happen accidentally: the fall in soda sales is a result of successful food advocacy. Soda Politics provides the overwhelming evidence to keep up pressure on all those involved in the production, marketing, sales, and subsidization of soda.

Whether a five-star chef or beginning home cook, any gourmand knows that recipes are far more than a set of instructions on how to make a dish. They are culture-keepers as well as culture-makers, both recording memories and fostering new ones. Organized like a cookbook, Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal is a collection of American literature written on the theme of food: from an invocation to a final toast, from starters to desserts. All food literatures are indebted to the form and purpose of cookbooks, and each section begins with an excerpt from an influential American cookbook, progressing chronologically from the late 1700s through the present day, including such favorites as American Cookery, the Joy of Cooking, and Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The literary works within each section are an extension of these cookbooks, while the cookbook excerpts in turn become pieces of literature—forms of storytelling and memory-making all their own. Each section offers a delectable assortment of poetry, prose, and essays, and the selections all include at least one tempting recipe to entice readers to cook this book. Including writing from such notables as Maya Angelou, James Beard, Alice B. Toklas, Sherman Alexie, Nora Ephron, M.F.K. Fisher, and Alice Waters, among many others, Books That Cook reveals the range of ways authors incorporate recipes—whether the recipe flavors the story or the story serves to add spice to the recipe. Books That Cook is a collection to serve students and teachers of food studies as well as any epicure who enjoys a good meal alongside a good book.

At no time during the Great Depression was the contradiction between agriculture surplus and widespread hunger more wrenchingly graphic than in the government's attempt to raise pork prices through the mass slaughter of miliions of "unripe" little pigs. This contradiction was widely perceived as a "paradox." In fact, as Janet Poppendieck makes clear in this newly expanded and updated volume, it was a normal, predictable working of an economic system rendered extreme by the Depression. The notion of paradox, however, captured the imagination of the public and policy makers, and it was to this definition of the problem that surplus commodities distribution programs in the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations were addressed. This book explains in readable narrative how the New Deal food assistance effort, originally conceived as a relief measure for poor people, became a program designed to raise the incomes of commercial farmers. In a broader sense, the book explains how the New Deal years were formative for food assistance in subsequent administrations; it also examines the performance--or lack of performance--of subsequent in-kind relief programs. Beginning with a brief survey of the history of the American farmer before the depression and the impact of the Depression on farmers, the author describes the development of Hoover assistance programs and the events at the end of that administration that shaped the "historical moment" seized by the early New Deal. Poppendieck goes on to analyze the food assistance policies and programs of the Roosevelt years, the particular series of events that culminated in the decision to purchase surplus agriculture products and distribute them to the poor, the institutionalization of this approach, the resutls achieved, and the interest groups formed. The book also looks at the takeover of food assistance by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its gradual adaptation for use as a tool in the maintenance of farm income. Utliizing a wide variety of official and unofficial sources, the author reveals with unusual clarity the evolution from a policy directly responsive to the poor to a policy serving mainly democratic needs.

At no time during the Great Depression was the contradiction between agriculture surplus and widespread hunger more wrenchingly graphic than in the government's attempt to raise pork prices through the mass slaughter of miliions of "unripe" little pigs. This contradiction was widely perceived as a "paradox." In fact, as Janet Poppendieck makes clear in this newly expanded and updated volume, it was a normal, predictable working of an economic system rendered extreme by the Depression. The notion of paradox, however, captured the imagination of the public and policy makers, and it was to this definition of the problem that surplus commodities distribution programs in the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations were addressed. This book explains in readable narrative how the New Deal food assistance effort, originally conceived as a relief measure for poor people, became a program designed to raise the incomes of commercial farmers. In a broader sense, the book explains how the New Deal years were formative for food assistance in subsequent administrations; it also examines the performance - or lack of performance - of subsequent in-kind relief programs. Beginning with a brief survey of the history of the American farmer before the depression and the impact of the Depression on farmers, the author describes the development of Hoover assistance programs and the events at the end of that administration that shaped the "historical moment" seized by the early New Deal. Poppendieck goes on to analyze the food assistance policies and programs of the Roosevelt years, the particular series of events that culminated in the decision to purchase surplus agriculture products and distribute them to the poor, the institutionalization of this approach, the resutls achieved, and the interest groups formed. The book also looks at the takeover of food assistance by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its gradual adaptation for use as a tool in the maintenance of farm income. Utliizing a wide variety of official and unofficial sources, the author reveals with unusual clarity the evolution from a policy directly responsive to the poor to a policy serving mainly democratic needs.

Calories - too few or too many - are the source of health problems affecting billions of people in today's globalized world. Although calories are essential to human health and survival, they cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted. They are also hard to understand. In Why Calories Count, Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim explain in clear and accessible language what calories are and how they work, both biologically and politically. As they take readers through the issues that are fundamental to our understanding of diet and food, weight gain, loss, and obesity, Nestle and Nesheim sort through a great deal of the misinformation put forth by food manufacturers and diet program promoters. They elucidate the political stakes and show how federal and corporate policies have come together to create an "eat more" environment. Finally, having armed readers with the necessary information to interpret food labels, evaluate diet claims, and understand evidence as presented in popular media, the authors offer some candid advice: get organized; eat less; eat better; move more; and get political.

What's wrong with the US food system? Why is half the world starving while the other half battles obesity? Who decides our food issues, and why can't we do better with labeling, safety, or school food? These are complex questions that are hard to answer in an engaging way for a broad audience. But everybody eats, and food politics affects us all. Marion Nestle, whom Michael Pollan ranked as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama) in Forbes, has always used cartoons in her public presentations to communicate how politics-shaped by government, corporate marketing, economics, and geography-influences food choice. Cartoons do more than entertain; the best get right to the core of complicated concepts and powerfully convey what might otherwise take pages to explain. In Eat Drink Vote, Nestle teams up with The Cartoonist Group syndicate to present more than 250 of her favorite cartoons on issues ranging from dietary advice to genetic engineering to childhood obesity. Using the cartoons as illustration and commentary, she engagingly summarizes some of today's most pressing issues in food politics. While encouraging readers to vote with their forks for healthier diets, this book insists that it's also necessary to vote with votes to make it easier for everyone to make healthier dietary choices.