Controversies in Food and Nutrition

You can never have too many vitamins, until they kill you. Eat meat, but avoid beef, chicken, turkey, and pork. Packaged foods are more efficiently preserved than they were 100 years ago—but should we actually eat the stuff? Consumers are besieged with conflicting messages about food and nutrition, making it difficult for the average customer to know what to believe. Is anything safe at McDonald's? Do carbohydrates cause obesity? This provocative new resource explores 15 common controversies in the field of food and nutrition.

The authors explain the varying opinions and underlying issues that surround these debates, shedding new light on tensions over popular diets, fast food, and vegetarianism. Readers will gain a better understanding of these arguments and learn of the controversies surrounding lesser known topics as well, such as food irradiation, organic and imported food, vitamin supplementation, animal growth hormones, and more. Hot topics such as mad cow disease, high-protein diets, food allergies, and genetic modifications are clearly presented. This resource is perfect for high school and college students, as well as the general public.

MYRNA CHANDLER GOLDSTEIN has been a freelance writer and independent scholar for two decades. Her website is Doing Good, While Doing Business: Support Socially Responsible Companies (www.changethemold.com). She is the author of Boys into Men, Controversies in Food and Nutrition, and Controversies in the Practice of Medicine with Greenwood Press.

MARK A. GOLDSTEIN, M.D. is Chief of Pediatrics and Student Health Services at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. with Chandler Goldstein, he is the co-author of Controversies in the Practice of Medicine (Greenwood, 2001) and Boys into Men: Staying Healthy Through the Teen Years (Greenwood, 2000).