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In Defense of Food Page 21

Glassner, Barry. The Gospel of Food (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007).

Kantrowitz, Barbara, and Claudia Kalb. “Food News Blues.” Newsweek (March 13, 2006).

Levenstein, Harvey. Paradox of Plenty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

--. Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). Includes an excellent account of food faddism in America.

Melton, Lisa. “The Antioxidant Myth.” New Scientist (August 5-11, 2006).

Planck, Nina. Real Food: What to Eat and Why (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006).

Scrinis, Gyorgy. “Sorry Marge.” Meanjin. 61.4 (2002): 108-16.

Shapiro, Laura. Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century (New York: Random House, 2001).

Taubes, Gary. Good Calories, Bad Calories (New York: Knopf, 2007).

--. “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat.” Science. 291.30 (March 2001).

--. “What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” New York Times (July 7, 2002).

Trivedi, Bijal. “The Good, the Fad, and the Unhealthy.” New Scientist (September 23, 2006).

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health (Washington, D.C., 1988).

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. Dietary Goals for the United States (Washington, D.C., 1977).

On the contemporary food environment and food marketing:

Hartman, Harvey, and Jarrett Paschel. “Understanding Obesity: Practical Suggestions for the Obesity Crisis” (Bellevue: The Hartman Group, Inc., 2006). Interesting anthropological analysis of how American eating habits contribute to obesity.

Lofstock, John. “Boosting Impulse Sales at the Checkout Counter.” Convenience Store Decisions (January 11, 2006).

Martin, Andrew. “Makers of Sodas Try a New Pitch: They’re Healthy.” New York Times (March 7, 2007).

Merill, Richard A., et al. “Like Mother Used to Make: An Analysis of FDA Standards of Identity.” Columbia Law Review. 74.4 (May 1974). Contains a good account of the FDA’s 1973 decision to repeal its imitation rule.

Nestle, Marion. Food Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

--. What to Eat (New York: North Point Press, 2006).

Simon, Michele. Appetite for Profit (New York: Nation Books, 2006).

On the controversies surrounding modern nutrition science and its methods, the literature is endless. A good place to start appreciating the complexities, if not impossibilities, of the field is Marion Nestle’s excellent epilogue to Food Politics. Gary Taubes offers a thorough critique of both epidemiological and clinical nutrition research in Good Calories, Bad Calories. For more on the methodology of nutrition science:

Belanger, C.F., C.H. Hennekens, B. Rosner et al. “The Nurses’ Health Study.” American Journal of Nursing. (1978): 1039-40.

Campbell, T. Colin. “Letters to the Editor: Animal Protein and Ischemic Heart Disease.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 71.3 (2000): 849-50.

Freudenheim, Jo L. “Study Design and Hypothesis Testing: Issues in the Evaluation of Evidence from Research in Nutritional Epidemiology.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 69 suppl (1999): 1315S-21S.

Giovannucci, Edward, et al. “A Comparison of Prospective and Retrospective Assessments of Diet in the Study of Breast Cancer.” American Journal of Epidemiology. 137.5 (1993): 502-11.

Horner, Neilann K. “Participant Characteristics Associated with Errors in Self-Reported Energy Intake from the Women’s Health Initiative Food-Frequency Questionnaire.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 76 (2002): 766-73.

Hu, Frank B., and Walter Willett. “Letters to the Editor: Reply to TC Campbell.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 71.3 (2000): 850-51.

Hu, Frank B., et al. “Reproducibility and Validity of Dietary Patterns Assessed with a Food-Frequency Questionnaire.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 69 (1999): 243-49.

Kristal, Alan R., et al. “Is It Time to Abandon the Food Frequency Questionnaire?” Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers Prevention. 14.12 (2005): 2826-28.

Liu, Simin, et al. “Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: The Women’s Health Study.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 72 (2000): 922-28.

Napoli, Maryann. “Prevention Advice to Women Doesn’t Hold Up.” Center for Medical Consumers Web site (March 2006). Available online at www.medicalconsumers.org.

Ostrzenski, Adam, and Katarzyna M. Ostrzenska. “WHI Clinical Trial Revisit: Imprecise Scientific Methodology Disqualifies the Study’s Outcomes.” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 193 (2005): 1599-1604.

Rosner, B., W. C. Willett, et al. “Correction of Logistic Regression Relative Risk Estimates and Confidence Intervals for Systematic Within-Person Measurement Error.” Statistics in Medicine. 8 (1989): 1051-69.

Stein, Karen. “After the Media Feeding Frenzy: Whither the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial?” Journal of the American Dietetic Association. (2006): 794-800.

Taubes, Gary. “Epidemiology Faces Its Limits.” Science. 269.5221 (1995): 164-69.

--. Good Calories, Bad Calories (New York: Knopf, 2007).

Twombly, Renee. “Negative Women’s Health Initiative Findings Stir Consternation, Debate Among Researchers.” Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 98.8 (April 19, 2006).

Willett, Walter C. “Invited Commentary: A Further Look at Dietary Questionnaire Validation.” American Journal of Epidemiology. 154.12 (2001): 1100-1102.

--, and Frank B. Hu. “Not the Time to Abandon the Food Frequency Questionnaire: Point.” Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers Prevention. 15.10 (2006): 1757-58.

On the subject of dietary fat and health:

Beresford, Shirley A. “Low-Fat Dietary Pattern and Risk of Colorectal Cancer: The Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 295.6 (2006): 643-654.

Dietary Fats and Health. Edited by E. G. Perkins and W. J. Visek (Champaign, IL: American Oil Chemists’ Society, 1983). This book includes (from the Harshaw Chemical Company) Robert C. Hastert’s article “Hydrogenation-A Tool, Not an Epithet,” on pages 53-69.

Enig, Mary G. Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol (Silver Spring, MD: Bethesda Press, 2000). Enig is hardly mainstream, but she was one of
the first scientists to raise questions about the lipid hypothesis and sound the alarm about trans fats.

-, and Sally Fallon. “The Oiling of America” (The Weston A. Price Foundation, 2000). Available online at http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/oiling.html.

Howard, Barbara V., et al. “Low-Fat Dietary Pattern and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: The Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 295.6 (2006): 655-66.

Hu, Frank B., et al. “Types of Dietary Fat and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: A Critical Review.” Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 20.1 (2001): 5-19.

Ludwig, David S. “Clinical Update: The Low-Glycemic-Index Diet.” The Lancet. 369.9565 (2007): 890-92.

Prentice, Ross L. “Low-Fat Dietary Pattern and Risk of Invasive Breast Cancer: The Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 295.6 (2006): 629-42.

Taubes, Gary. Good Calories, Bad Calories (New York: Knopf, 2007). Taubes’s reporting on and analysis of the lipid hypothesis is groundbreaking.

--. “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat.” Science. 291.30 (March 2001).

--. “What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” New York Times Magazine (July 7, 2002). This article almost single-handedly launched the second Atkins craze and the great carbophobia of 2002-2003.

On the links between diet and diseases:

Campbell, T. Colin, and Thomas M. Campbell II. The China Study (Dallas: BenBella Books, Inc., 2006).

Ford, Earl S., et al. “Explaining the Decrease in U.S. Deaths from Coronary Disease, 1980-2000.” New England Journal of Medicine. 356.23 (2007): 2388-98.

Key, Timothy J., et al. “Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer.” Public Health Nutrition. 7.1A (2004): 187-200.

National Research Council. Diet, Nutrition and Cancer (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1982).

Nestle, Marion. Food Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

Nutritional Genomics: Discovering the Path to Personalized Nutrition. Edited by Jim Kaput and Raymond L. Rodriguez (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006). This volume includes Walter Willett’s article “The Pursuit of Optimal Diets: A Progress Report.” Nutritional Health: Strategies for Disease Prevention. Edited by Ted Wilson and Norman J. Temple (Totowa, NJ: Humana Press, Inc., 2001).

Rosamond, Wayne D., et al. “Trends in the Incidence of Myocardial Infarction and in Mortality Due to Coronary Heart Disease, 1987 to 1994.” New England Journal of Medicine. 339.13 (1998): 861-67.

Willett, Walter C. “Diet and Cancer: One View at the Start of the Millennium.” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. 10 (2001): 3-8.

--. “Diet and Health: What Should We Eat?” Science. 264.5158 (1994): 532-37.

--. Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating (New York: Free Press, 2001).

World Cancer Research Fund. Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective. (Washington, D.C.: American Institute for Cancer Research, 1997).

On nutritionism and its social and psychological effects:

Roberts, Paul. “The New Food Anxiety.” Psychology Today. (March/April, 1998).

Rozin, Paul, et al. “Food and Life, Pleasure and Worry, Among American College Students: Gender Differences and Regional Similarities.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 85.1 (2003): 132-41.

Rozin, Paul. “Human Food Intake and Choice: Biological, Psychological and Cultural Perspectives.” (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2002). Available online at http://www.danone-institute. com/publications/book/pdf/food__selection__01__rozin.pdf.

Rozin, Paul, et al. “Lay American Conceptions of Nutrition: Dose Insensitivity, Categorical Thinking, Contagion, and the Monotonic Mind.” Health Psychology. 15.6 (1996): 438-47.

Rozin, Paul, et al. “The Ecology of Eating: Smaller Portion Sizes in France Than in the United States Help Explain the French Paradox.” Psychological Science. 14.5 (2003): 450-54.

Scrinis, Gyorgy, and Rosemary Stanton. “A Diet Thin on Science.” The Age (August 29, 2005).

Scrinis, Gyorgy. “Engineering the Food Chain.” Arena Magazine. 77 (2005): 37-39.

--. “High in Protein, Low in Fat and Too Good to Be True.” Sydney Morning Herald (April 7, 2006).

--. “Labels: An Unhealthy Trend.” The Age (December 30, 2005).

--. “Sorry Marge.” Meanjin. 61.4 (2002): 108-16.

PART TWO: THE WESTERN DIET AND THE DISEASES OF CIVILIZATION

On the Western diet and its links to the Western diseases:

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999).

Diet of Man: Needs and Wants. Edited by John Yudkin (London: Applied Science Publishers Ltd., 1978).

Drummond, J.C., and Anne Wilbraham. The Englishman’s Food: A History of Five Centuries of English Diet (Oxford: Alden Press, 1939).

Milburn, Michael P. “Indigenous Nutrition.” American Indian Quarterly. 28.3 (2004): 411-34.

Nabhan, Gary Paul. Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004).

Northbourne, Christopher James (5th Lord Northbourne). Look to the Land (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1940). New edition: (Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 2003).

O’Dea, Kerin. “Marked Improvement in Carbohydrate and Lipid Metabolism in Diabetic Australian Aborigines After Temporary Reversion to Traditional Lifestyle.” Diabetes. 33 (1984): 596-603. This is the research referred to at the beginning of Part II. It is further elaborated on in:

--. “The Therapeutic and Preventive Potential of the Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyle: Insights from Australian Aborigines.” From Western Diseases. Edited by N. J. Temple and D. P. Burkitt (Totowa, NJ: Humana Press, 1994).

Perry, George H., et al. “Diet and the Evolution of Human Amylase Gene Copy Number Variation.” Nature Genetics. doi:10.1038/ng2123 (September 9, 2007).

Price, Weston A. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 7th edition (LaMesa: Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, Inc., 2006).

Renner, Martin. “Modern Civilization, Nutritional Dark Age: Weston A. Price’s Ecological Critique of the Industrial Food System” (UC Santa Cruz master’s thesis, 2005).

Schmid, Ronald F. Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine: Improving Health and Longevity with Native Nutrition (Rochester, NY: Healing Arts Press, 1987).

Taubes, Gary. Good Calories, Bad Calories (New York: Knopf, 2007)
. See Chapter 5, “The Diseases of Civilization.”

Western Diseases. Edited by Norman J. Temple and Denis P. Burkitt (Totowa, NJ: Humana Press Inc., 1994).

On the industrialization of agriculture and the links between soil and health:

Asami, Danny K., et al. “Comparison of the Total Phenolic and Ascorbic Acid Content of Free-Dried and Air-Dried Marionberry, Strawberry, and Corn Using Conventional, Organic, and Sustainable Agricultural Practices.” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 51 (2003): 1237-41.

Benbrook, Charles M. “Elevating Antioxidant Levels in Food Through Organic Farming and Food Processing: An Organic Center State of Science Review” (Foster, RI: Organic Center, 2005).

Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977).

Brandt, Kirsten, and Jens Peter Mшlgaard. “Organic Agriculture: Does It Enhance or Reduce the Nutritional Value of Plant Foods?” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 81.9 (2001): 924-31.

Carbonaro, Marina, and Maria Mattera. “Polyphenoloxidase Activity and Polyphenol Levels in Organically and Conventionally Grown Peaches.” Food Chemistry. 72 (2001): 419-24.

Davis, Donald R., et al. “Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999.” Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 23.6 (2004): 669-82.

--. “Trade-Offs in Agriculture and Nutrition.” Food Technology. 59.3 (2005).

Fox, Jennifer E., et al. “Pesticides Reduce Symbiotic Efficiency of Nitrogen-Fixing Rhizobia and Host Plants.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104.24 (2007).

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