New Books We Recommend : AKA Marion Nestle is Amazing!

New Books we Recommend: AKA Marion Nestle is Amazing!

I've just about finished updating our "Books we Reccomend" section and suddenly had to stop and quickly write a few words about Marion Nestle and her website Food Politics. While we here at the RFC are usually speaking from a position outside of our greater food system, Nestle has been working for decades to improve that system from within. A prolific writer and outlandishly informed and insightful educator on the topic of our food system, Nestle seems to cover all the angles with such enthusiasm and charm it's hard not to sit up and pay attention.
Her book on the pet food industry and what it says about our food system, Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine is on my reading list. A passage from her site states that "The story told in Pet Food Politics demonstrates how food for people, farm animals, and pets is really much the same. We only have one food system. A safety problem in any part of it affects food for all. The pet food recalls should have warned us all that the food safety system needed fixing, and right away. The peanut butter recalls of 2009 show what what happens when such warnings go unheeded."
Nestle's Books include Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. The website includes reviews of the text from the likes of Julia Child who stated that “In this fascinating book we learn how powerful, intrusive, influential, and invasive big industry is and how alert we must constantly be to prevent it from influencing not only our own personal nutritional choices, but those of our government agencies. Marion Nestle has presented us with a courageous and masterful exposé.”
Even if you don't read her books you should check out her blog. I just picked up more than a few great bits of information in a matter of minutes Including news of chef Jamie Oliver's upcoming T.V. show depicting his attempt to overhaul the food in one notoriously unhealthy West Virgina public School.
Nestle, who is speaking today in D.C. at the USDA also has an updated eddition of her 2003 book Safe Food coming out this spring.