Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #903106 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Arguing for a balanced perspective ... and eating habits
"Call it the perfectibility trap, this impulse to idealize some foods while devaluing others that are plenty good for their intended purposes but don't further a pet view of proper eating." - Barry Glassner

Perhaps you know someone whom THE GOSPEL OF FOOD author Barry Glassner would call a "devotee of the doctrine of naught", i.e. one who eats food based on what it doesn't contain - too much in the way of calories, fat, sodium, cholesterol, sugar, animal products, preservatives, genetic modifications, or whatever - rather than what it does. And once an acceptable foodstuff is decided upon, it's portioned and weighed and toted up for the day's ration. To such a person, mention of any yearning for a cheeseburger incurs a look of scornful contempt that would wither the most blithe of souls. Such a person is an unofficial member of the Food Police. ("Badges!? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!!")

Perhaps you're one of them.

A professor of sociology at USC, Glassner hopes to persuade the reader to accept a more balanced perspective of the food they eat that can perhaps be summarized as, "Eat what you want in moderation; eat food for what it is rather than what it's not; enjoy one of life's great pleasures because it's the only life you've got."

Glassner is, of course, at odds with the hand-wringing government nannies and assorted self-proclaimed nutritional do-gooders that say you're too fat because you eat the wrong foods - especially fast foods - and are doomed to a premature death. With that in mind, perhaps the most interesting chapter in THE GOSPEL OF FOOD is "What Made America Fat", in which Barry examines the reasons ranging from the probable, such as the binge eating of constant dieters, to the interestingly plausible, such as adenovirus-36, to the downright improbable, such as inadequate breast feeding as an infant. Indeed, after referencing the iconoclastic book by law professor Paul Campos, THE OBESITY MYTH - see my 6/14/2005 review entitled "Recommended reading for all past and present 'husky boys'" - Glassner reiterates:

"... not a single published study demonstrates that heart disease among the overweight and moderately obese results from their heft rather than from other factors that contribute to obesity and heart disease, such as smoking, poverty, stress, genetic predisposition, physical activity, depression, and quality of medical care."

I give my read books away to friends, usually in pristine condition. This one, I fear, has a stain of Secret Sauce and a smear of french fry grease on page 173 because I, like Glassner:

"... can't help but wonder how hundreds of millions of people have enjoyed fast-food burgers and lived to tell the tale if Mother Nature had entirely different plans."

On my death-bed - perhaps sooner, perhaps later - I may have cause to remember a particularly delicious meal I once ate. I can assure you that it won't be my dear wife's stir-fried veg with tofu chunks, which, bless her good intentions, is edible enough. Rather, it may be that deep-dish, pepperoni, sausage and mushroom pizza dripping with melted cheese and grease, and washed down with a cold beer, because, for an all too fleeting span of time, it contributed to a life worth living. I think Glassner would agree.