by Marion Nestle
Mar 15 2012

Nature reviews Why Calories Count

NATURE, March 14, 2012, Review
(Books in Brief review (scroll down to the second one)

Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics

Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim University of California Press 304 pp. $19.95 (2012)

Obesity has gone global — as has misinformation about nutrition and food. Nutrition scientists Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim unscramble the confusion with a serving of science.

They reveal how calories — those potent but ill-understood measures of heat energy — are really counted, why we need them, how we use them, how many we actually need and why it all sometimes goes so wrong.

From ‘secret’ calories to food politics, malnourishment and calorie restriction for health, this is a feast for the mind.