What to Eat | Marion Nestle

1. "Breakfast cereals are supposed to be good for you, and the relatively unprocessed ones still are, but most are now so thoroughly processed and sugared and filled with additives that they might as well be cookies.  You can hardly find a cereal without added vitamins, so let's call them vitamin-enriched, lowfat cookies." (339)

2. Any sensible person might think that the Founding Fathers devised the First Amendment to protect political dissent rather than the right of food marketers to use overblown health claims on cereal boxes. (344)

3. Bear in mind that food companies would rather you did not notice how they market their products to your kids.  If you did, you might see, as researchers tell us, that much of food marketing seems designed deliberately to undermine your authority and encourage your children to view you as ineffective or stupid... 'Conflicts arise because the foods that are most heavily marketed to children are low-nutrition foods of which parents would like their children to eat less.  Marketers count on children wearing their parents down and on parents giving in and purchasing low-nutrition food for their children... [F]ood marketing...forces parents to choose between being the bad guy who says "no" in order to protect their children's health or giving in to junk-food demands to keep the peace.'

Analysis of food commercials aimed at children demonstrate that such advertising often promotes "antisocial" and "anti-adult" behavior designed to make kids think they know more about what they are supposed to eat than their parents do.  As a parent, your job is to set limits but you are up against an entire industry devoted to undermining your authority to do so.  Marketing to children does more than make them want certain products; it is meant to change society. It aims to put kids in charge of decisions that you should be making.  For this reason alone, marketing to children is worth opposing. (381-382)

4. As an individual, your recourse against such manipulation is to vote with your dollars every time you buy food.  The better informed you are, the more wisely you can spend them.  But it is not easy to oppose an entire food system on your own; it takes strength, courage, and firm determination.  The current environment of food choice-- driven by Wall Street as it is-- has come about as the result of history, politics, and business concerns, not public interest." (521)

 5. "..Salmon farmers resort to cosmetics.  They add dyes to the feed pellets, knowing that the farmed salmon can easily absorb the color and that their flesh will turn as pink as that of wild salmon.  This, as it turns out, can be done with amazing precision. In the same way you match paint to color chips at paint stores, salmon farmers can choose the color they want the salmon to be from a chart made by Hoffmann-La Roche, the company that makes synthetic astaxanthin and canthaxanthin.  The intensity of color on the Hoffman-La Roche SalmoFan ranges from #20 (pale salmon pink) to #34 (bright orange-red). Focus group tests show that customers prefer the natural color of wild salmon (#33 on the SalmoFan) by a ratio of 2 to 1, equate that color with quality, and say they are willing to pay more for it.  When farmed salmon comes in at a pinkish #27, customers reject it.  You can bet that salmon farmers give their fish plenty of the dyes." (225)

***

4.5/5. This book was fascinating. It was so hard to choose just 5 quotes. I learned that Albacore tuna is much higher in methylmercury than the cheaper kind, and that food politics is the reason this is not a well-known fact (something I wish I had known when I was pregnant!). Eggs are eggs, and grass-fed beef is higher in some vitamins and nutrients. Organic really is a better choice if you can afford it, and bottled water is basically a big fat waste of money. 

I learned how sophisticated and manipulative the food industry is, and I was inspired to rebel against this fact through the choices I make when I decide what to eat. I only wish she would revise and come out with a new edition, because this book came out in 2006. 

Marion Nestle is brilliant and delightfully presents her research with a good dose of humor (a necessary thing when you are swallowing the dark side of food politics). 

Bravo, Marion Nestle!

The Three Mothers | Anna Malaika Tubbs

LOUISE:

   1. “It is time for the honor many quietly pay Black mothers to become as loud as Alberta’s choir, as consistent as Berdis’s love, as strong as Louise’s fight.” (219)

   2.  “Louise was especially strict with Malcolm because he was so much like her. She knew firsthand how dangerous things could become for someone so strong willed, so she did her best to steer his energy and intelligence in the right direction. Malcolm learned more from what he saw in Louise than what she said directly to him. He too demanded what he knew he deserved, and he stood up for himself. She had strict rules for her children because she wanted to protect them, but like her son, she was a rebel who did not let rules restrict her.” (131)

   3. “For Louise, surviving meant never allowing fear to keep you from speaking the full truth, never being afraid of what you might lose in the fight for what was right.” (199)

   4.  “Louise, with her almost century on this earth, would leave an indelible print on the lives of millions, most of whom are still unaware of her name.” (188)

  5. “The mother is the first teacher of the child. The message she gives that child, that child gives to the world. -Malcolm X” (178)

BERDIS: 

  1. “David’s funeral took place a few days later… Berdis was not there. She was attending to her newborn and perhaps already focusing on her new life, free from him. Years later, Berdis’s grandson would describe Paula’s birth as completing Berdis’s solar system, with Berdis in the middle and her nine children surrounding her. He would also describe David’s death as the moment that allowed Berdis’s light to fully shine like the sun. She’s lost both of her parents, she was isolated in the North, away from family, and she was now a single mother of nine at the age of forty-one. She would have to do whatever she could to provide for her children, but she would, as she always had, find a way.” (115)

  2.  “For Berdis, living life to the fullest centered around being able to find love and joy for yourself no matter how hard others tried to take it away from you.” (199)

  3.  “We are all walking in terrible darkness here, and this is one man’s attempt to bear witness to the reality and the power of light. -James Baldwin” (152)

  4.  “I saw my mother’s face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. James Baldwin” (178)

 5. “…we must do a better job of recording our stories and sharing our truths, not only with our immediate networks but with as many people as possible. It is only a disservice when we hide ourselves, when our children do not know what we have gone through and how we survived it, when we allow others to define who we are.” (218) 

ALBERTA:

  1. “Alberta Christine Williams King is best known for being the mother of the revered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…. Alberta’s work did not stop when she got married, it did not stop when she became a mother, it did not stop when her heart was weighed down by anxiety over the danger her children faced, it didn’t even stop when she buried her sons. Alberta used her family teachings, her own training, her love for her family, her deepest pain, and her desire to educate to touch the lives of others and, by doing so, to live a full life. Loved ones said, ‘Her teachings of unshakable faith and her love for mankind were instrumental in shaping the nonviolent movement which has changed the course of history.’” (183-184)

   2. “Christine would fondly recall such moments, saying, “Every now and then, I have to chuckle as I realize there are people who actually believe ML [as Martin was sometimes called by his loved ones] just appeared. They think he simply happened, that he appeared fully formed, without context, ready to change the world. Take it from his big sister, that’s simply not the case. We are the products of a long line of activists and ministers. We come from a family of incredible men and women who served as leaders in their time and place, long before ML was ever thought of.” (133)

  3. “For Alberta, fulfillment for herself and her children rested completely in their Christian faith and was paired with their pursuit of education in order to better their own situation as well as that of their larger community.” (199)

  4. “It is something like the mother giving birth to a child. While she is temporarily consoled by the fact that her pain is not just bare meaningless pain, she nevertheless experiences the pain. In spite of the fact that she realizes beneath her pain is the emergence of life in a radiant infant, she experiences the agony right on. Martin Luther King, Jr.” (178)

 5. “Rather than standing in awe of Black mothers and simply commenting with deference on their incredible strength, others should stand with them and lighten their burden.” (219)

***

3/5  Fascinating, sobering, inspirational.