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Reason.com recently reviewed Barry Glassner’s new book, The Gospel of Food:

“Years ago, I interviewed Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, for a National Review article about his group’s highly publicized reports decrying the delicious dangers lurking in popular restaurant dishes. “I like my vegetables and rice as much as somebody likes their steak and French fries,” he told me. “No, you don’t,” I thought. The cadaverous Jacobson, who looks like he is conducting a life extension experiment involving extreme calorie restriction, routinely reduces the dining experience to numbers indicating nutritional assets and liabilities, treating pleasure as, at best, an afterthought.

To some extent, Barry Glassner, author of The Gospel of Food (Harper-Collins), errs in the opposite direction…. “Some of us see eating as something we get to do, a privilege and source of joy,” Glassner writes. “Others view eating as something they have to do.” He is referring to New York Times health columnist Jane Brody, but the same description applies to Jacobson (who gets his share of criticism elsewhere in the book) and every other nutrition nag who rigidly assigns foods to recommended and prohibited categories. Glassner understands that any food can be made to seem good or bad depending on which features one chooses to emphasize, and that a dish’s merits cannot be fully captured by a table listing vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, fats, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar.”

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