Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee
Author: Bee Wilson
Bad food has a history. Swindled tells it. Through a fascinating mixture of cultural and scientific history, food politics, and culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many ways swindlers have cheapened, falsified, and even poisoned our food throughout history. In the hands of people and corporations who have prized profits above the health of consumers, food and drink have been tampered with in often horrifying ways--padded, diluted, contaminated, substituted, mislabeled, misnamed, or otherwise faked. Swindled gives a panoramic view of this history, from the leaded wine of the ancient Romans to today's food frauds--such as fake organics and the scandal of Chinese babies being fed bogus milk powder.
Wilson pays special attention to nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and England and their roles in developing both industrial-scale food adulteration and the scientific ability to combat it. As Swindled reveals, modern science has both helped and hindered food fraudsters--increasing the sophistication of scams but also the means to detect them. The big breakthrough came in Victorian England when a scientist first put food under the microscope and found that much of what was sold as genuine coffee was anything but--and that you couldn't buy pure mustard in all of London.
Arguing that industrialization, laissez-faire politics, and globalization have all hurt the quality of food, but also that food swindlers have always been helped by consumer ignorance, Swindled ultimately calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant. In fact, Wilson suggests, one of our best protections is simply to reeducate ourselves about the joys of food and cooking.
About the Author
BEE WILSON is the author of The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us. She writes a weekly food column for London's Sunday Telegraph and is a former food critic for the New Statesman. She has been named Food Journalist of the Year by the Guild of Food Writers and Food Writer of the Year by BBC Radio 4.
The Times (London)
[Wilson] wants to shake us awake, to make us look afresh at the food we eat. She does so triumphantly. . . . It is her considered and often humorous approach that makes this book so successful--and so alarming. --Clare Clark
The Independent
Marvellous and horrifying. . . . We're all caught in a food web, and Wilson shows us with urgent clarity how slender its strands are, and how little we can really trust them. --Diane Purkiss
Times Literary Supplement
[L]ively and unsettling. . . . The blatant frauds of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are set alongside the more subtle (and mostly legal) tinkering with food in the modern world. . . . Wilson places contemporary concerns about what we are eating in an original and thought-provoking context. --Paul Freedman
The Financial Times
[E]ngrossing and occasionally revolting. --David Honigmann
The Mail on Sunday
[R]iveting. . . . If ever a book could convince you that the only food worth eating is that which you have scrupulously shopped for in reputable local shops and cooked yourself from scratch, it is this one. --Val Hennessy
The Telegraph
[A] fascinating and curiously uplifting read. --Jan Moir
Time Out (U.K.)
Think the food we eat today is adulterated and unsafe to eat? Read this book and be amazed our ancestors ever survived to their next meal. . . . [Wilson's] intellectual rigor and disciplined research skills prove a great match with her seamless and engaging writing--she manages to bring history alive, and leaves you wanting more. --Guy Dimond
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.
Columnist and food writer Wilson takes readers to the beginning of the 19th century to document the history of food adulteration-at heart "two very simple principles: poisoning and cheating." Concentrating on Britain and the U.S. (other countries, especially France, navigated food supply industrialization with wiser government policy), Wilson finds the first food crusader in Frederick Accum, a German immigrant who used chemistry to expose the dishonesty of London food purveyors in his Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons; she finds the first ineffective government response in Parliament's commitment to laissez faire economic policies over citizen safety. In the U.S., New York's 1850s "swill milk" epidemic and Chicago's meat packing industry would eventually lead to the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act-which probably wouldn't have passed without the popularity of Upton Sinclair's meat packing expose The Jungle, and couldn't stop the most nefarious and prevalent of food frauds, the development of fake foods: margarine, baby formula and thousands more. Wilson follows the economic, cultural and political threads skillfully, reporting on developments as recent as the China baby formula scandal. Prescribing more awareness and regulation, Wilson contends that consumers and governments must recognize the continuous pressure on companies to make money by substituting nutritious, genuine ingredients with adulterants. Timely, witty and purposeful, this thorough history should open a lot of eyes. .
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
What People Are Saying
Bee Wilson is a terrific writer who tells great stories, and her book could not be more timely given what's going on in the Chinese food industry today. --Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics and What to Eat
Books about economics: Employee Benefits or Introduction to Governmental and Non for Profit Accounting
Baking with Agave Nectar: 80 Recipes Using Nature's Ultimate Sweetener
Author: Ania Catalano
Even before its health benefits were being touted on Oprah's daytime show, agave nectar was finding fans among dessert lovers seeking to reduce or eliminate processed sugar in their diets. In Baking With Agave Nectar, natural foods chef Ania Catalano shows how to creatively integrate this up-and-coming natural sugar substitute into every sweet tooth's repertoire through a variety of delectable recipes. From breakfast goodies (Pumpkin Muffins, Stuffed French Toast) to cookies (Chewy Double Chocolate Meringue) to desserts (Bread Pudding Souffles with Bourbon Sauce, Pear Frangipane Tart), Catalano makes agave nectar accessible and appealing to health-conscious bakers of all levels.
* A comprehensive full-color cookbook for baking favorite sweets with agave nectar, including more than 80 recipes.
No comments:
Post a Comment