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Today is the official publication date for Soda Politics.  This means it should now be available in bookstores and open for review and comment.  

For more information, see the book page for it on this site.  There you will find the blurbs, reviews, media interviews, and the list of media resources—videos, audios, music, movies, commercials, and anti-commercials—that I ran across while working on the book.

Enjoy!

Emily Yates-Doerr.  The Weight of Obesity: Hunger and Global Health in Postwar Guatemala. University of California Press, 2015.

Emily was a student in NYU’s anthropology department and I’ve admired her work for a long time.  Her book is based on her remarkable dissertation work, and I was happy to be asked to blurb it:

Emily Yates-Doerr gives us an anthropologist’s tough analysis of how one resource-poor Guatemalan population responds to an increasingly globalized food supply as it transitions rapidly from widespread hunger and malnutrition to the increasing prevalence of obesity and its health consequences.  The Weight of Obesity views this “nutrition transition” from the unusually revealing perspective of an insider who experienced it personally with eyes wide open.

For me, the most riveting parts of her book are the transcribed conversations between clinic nutritionists and patients newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes—a case study in the cultural gap between nutrient-based advice (“nutritionism”) and the way people actually eat.  The effects of the rapid influx of “ultra-processed” products on the health of the populations studied here are also painfully clear.  This is an ethnography of the nutrition transition caught just as these cultural and dietary shifts were occurring.

Lisa F. Clark. The Changing Politics of Organic Food in North America. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015.

I did a blurb for this one.  It’s right up my alley.

Lisa Clark’s scholarly account of the development of the organic movement in the United States and Canada beautifully explains the decades-long transition from understanding organic production as inextricably tied to healthy soils, communities, and social justice (“process-based”) to views of organics as meeting certain standards for marketing purposes (“product-based”). Read this book and you will care deeply about the difference in these views as well as understand current debates about the future of organics.

In case you want to know why I favor organics, I do so from a process-based perspective.  I like what organics do for soils, communities, and social justice.  This book does a great job of explaining the basis of the debates over these issues.

On Fridays, I often post books I’ve blurbed or liked.

Today, it’s my turn.  I can’t resist posting the blurbs for Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning).   

The blurbs:

• “The soda industry is a powerful economic operator. Economic power readily translates into political power. Soda Politics is exactly the kind of carefully-researched investigative reporting needed to open the eyes of the public and parliamentarians to the health hazards of what is, as the author rightly notes, essentially liquid candy in a bottle.” –Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization
• “No book in history has so completely laid bare the soda scourge that touches every corner of the world. Marion Nestle shows how this happened, its impact on human health and well-being, who the players are, and, most importantly, what might be done. This is the right book at the right time.” –Dr. Kelly Brownell, Dean, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University
• “Marion Nestle is one of the greatest muckrakers of our time, and what she does is vitally important-for our health, our environment, and for future generations. Here, she wages war against the soda titans with such piercing clarity and so many irrefutable truths that all other arguments crumble.” –Alice Waters, Founder and Proprietor of Chez Panisse
• “Comprehensive and well-written, this book will help frame a thoughtful public policy debate about nutrition and the societal impacts and costs of obesity.” –Ann M. Veneman, Former US Secretary of Agriculture and Former Executive Director of UNICEF
• “What happens when the food industry’s most insightful critic turns her sights on soda? This razor-sharp, fun to read, plan-of-battle for one of the greatest public health fights of our time. Big soda may have all the money, but those who would enter this fray, as we all should, now have their champion.” –Michael Moss, Author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
• “For decades, soda companies have amassed fortunes off drinks that are making us sick. It took someone like Marion Nestle to cut through the spin and uncover the high cost of cheap sodas.” –Robert Kenner, Director/Producer, Food Inc. and Merchants of Doubt
• “Long recognized as an important and informed voice in our national and international discussions on nutrition and health, Marion Nestle has written another book that will keep us talking. With an impressive combination of scholarship and advocacy, Dr Nestle takes an unflinching look at the soda industry, its products and the impact on health. Soda Politics deserves the attention of the public and policy makers, and should make us all think more carefully about choices we can make to improve health and well-being.”–Margaret Hamburg, M.D., Former Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration 

The book officially comes out October 5, but Oxford University Press is already shipping it to preorders and Amazon starts shipping it next week.

Enjoy!

Leanne Brown.  Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4 / Day.  Workman, 2015.

Leanne Brown is a graduate of our food studies program at New York University who, while in graduate school, became concerned about the plight of SNAP (food stamp) recipients who must feed their families on an average of $4 per day.

She wrote this book for them, first as a class project, then as an online gift, free for the taking.

It was downloaded 700,000 times.

Then she went to a Kickstarter campaign to self-publish the book.  At some point Workman picked it up.

It’s won an award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals and a place for Leanne in Forbes 30 under 30 for 2015.

The book has truly delicious recipes.  It starts with tips useful for anyone on a food budget.

I’m proud of what she’s accomplished.  The book is beautifully photographed, the recipes are terrific, and every time a copy is sold, Workman will donate another one to someone who needs it.

Vanessa Domine.  Healthy Teens, Healthy Schools: How Media Literacy Can Renew Education in the United States.  Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

Here’s my blurb:

If you are not concerned about the effects of exposure to electronic media on the health of teenagers, you should be.   This book presents a well-researched, highly compelling case for the urgent need for media literacy education to be incorporated into school wellness programs as soon as possible.

For information about how online marketing affects kids’ food choices, take a look at the work of the Berkeley Media Studies Group, particularly in media advocacy training.

Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) also has resources about online marketing to kids (scroll down for a list).

Kate Harrington and Mary McIntyre.  Savor: Stories of Community, Culture & Food.  Edited by Adrienne Cachelin.   Foreword by Gary Paul Nabhan.  Available from www.savorbook.com, 2015.

Proceeds from sales of this book go to support the Glendale-Mt. View Community Learning Center where the authors work.  I liked the community aspects of this book so much that I did a blurb for it.

I can’t think of a better way to build community–to bring people of diverse cultures and histories together in common cause–than to ask them to describe what they most love to eat.  The Glendale Community Project has done just that and to gorgeous effect.  This book should inspire anyone to dig out treasured family recipes and share them with friends, new and old. 

Cricket Azima.  Everybody Can Cook.  DRL (Different Roads to Learning) Books, 2015.

This is for kids ages two and up.  It’s more than a cookbook.  It’s a curriculum. Cricket Azima, who founded and heads The Creative Kitchen, aims this at all kids, but especially those with physical and developmental disabilities.

I gave it a blurb:

People like me are always talking about how important it is to teach kids to cook.  You aren’t sure how?  Cricket Azima’s Everybody Can Cook is just what you need to have fun with your kids in the kitchen.  The recipes are easy and delicious.  Get your kids to start making dinner!