What to read, indeed.: Raise Your Forks

Wandering through a supermarket can be a formidable task, indeed. Consider that most large grocery stores display an unfathomable 40,000 products for your perusal and you may feel that familiar sense of anxiety mounting in the back of your mind. Take a deep breath and remind yourself that you are safe for the time being--far away from the fluorescent lights, the Rick Astley songs, and the children nipping from bulk candy bins. Michael Pollan refers to this glut of food options as the omnivore's dilemma, a concept that he addresses in his book of the same name. In the introduction, he mentions in passing that there are some anthropologists who believe the human brain has evolved in complexity just to deal with the issue of what to eat. Lucky for us, Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University, published a pivotal book on exactly this topic.

What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating provides an insightful and informative glimpse into the American supermarket, sparing no detail when it comes to the meaning of food labels, the processes behind food production, and the politics of nutrition education. If you feel the anxiety creeping in again, find relief in the fact that Nestle's primary goal with this book is to educate readers about how to make informed decisions while shopping. Nestle is able to effectively meld her expertise as a nutritionist with her experience as a consumer which makes her an invaluable liaison to the uninitiated. Her attitude is one of moderation, but--as a self-professed gourmand--she never overlooks the pleasures of good food. What to Eat seeks to communicate that consumers still have power, especially if we start "voting with our forks." Perhaps after reading this book, you may even feel comfortable crossing that threshold into grocery-land, as I do now. Oh yes, and now that Nestle has told us what to eat, it seems our brains may stop evolving...

A link to Marion Nestle's blog: http://www.foodpolitics.com/