What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating.

Nestle, Marion (author).

Nutritionist Nestle’s newest volume aims to help the American consumer determine what best to eat to improve or to maintain good health. Pursuing what she hopes is a unique and beneficial approach, she surveys a supermarket on a food-by-food basis, noting for each category what nutritional benefits are claimed and what really are the advantages and dangers in consuming any grocery offering. She documents how food industry concerns have perverted nutritional and origin labeling, dismayed that economics has once more trumped open information. She assesses the roles of trans-fats in processed food, methylmercury in fish, calcium in dairy products, salmonella in fresh eggs, sugar in cereals, and genetic modification. Nestle is particularly concerned that consumers understand all the implications, good and bad, of the perennially contentious “organic” label. Although the honest, prudent scientist in Nestle precludes her providing glib prescriptions or half-true advice on eating, she does present very helpful shopping guidelines for consumers determined to be vigilant about their food.