What to Read
Marion Nestle’s hefty but very readable new book, “What to Eat,” tackles the current nutritional scene, including health claims of various foods and supplements, with hard research and level-headed reason (she’s a professor of nutrition at at NYU). The skeptic in me loves this book.
Nestle investigates dubious health claims found on the labels of soy products, green tea, and yogurt; looks at the many dilemmas surrounding seafood consumption; explains the difference between conventional, natural, and organic meats; and calls bottled water “liquid gold” (for the beverage industry).
Here’s a tidbit I learned about eggs: Shell color is simply a genetic trait; some chickens lay brown eggs while others lay white. The nutritional contents are exactly the same. Nonetheless, some stores charge more for brown eggs; some charge more for white.
What does she say about grass-fed vs. grain-fed meat? Or rather, grass-finished vs. grain-finished (like almost all American beef, "natural" or otherwise)? I'd like to hear her take on the claim that the reason they have to use so many antibiotics is not because of general unsanitariness but because cows can't digest corn properly and thus are bloated and sick from it. Have you read Michael Pollan's new book? Does she talk about "free range" eggs (mostly a marketing term) vs. "pastured" eggs? Or how "organic" nowadays mostly means "industrial"? This subject is my new obsession. Sounds like I've got a new book for my list.