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The mixture of common sense, logic, nutritional science, and hard data make WHAT TO EAT an eye-opening one time read as well as a handy reference volume. Even the introduction (an easily digestible 15 pages) serves as a wake-up call about the state of food choices in America and should be required reading for every consumer before taking another trip to the supermarket. I had quite a bit of fun with this book and found it to be more whimsical and interactive than I had expected. A number of paragraphs had me running to check food labels on items in my pantry and find out what I was really eating.

The book is divided by food type into a number of different sections. The sections flow well from topic to topic and are generally self-contained, making it easy for the reader to skip around and focus on topics of particular interest. The title WHAT TO EAT is somewhat of a misnomer, and the author admits to this early in the book. Rather than authoritatively commanding "Eat A, B, and C, but never eat X, Y, and Z", this book provides the reader with detailed information about possible food options, thus enabling the reader to make their own choices about what they eat. When laying out the array of choices, Nestle includes both quantitative tables of data and qualitative personal considerations to aid the reader in rumination. Those who read this book hoping to uncover the Holy Grail of diets may find the title misleading; personally I found the approach to be informative, engaging, and empowering. Nestle's writing is never demanding or heavy-handed, instead letting food choices speak for themselves. For example, if your 2 options are "organic milk produced in your own state" versus "hormone- and antibiotic-laced milk from cows halfway across the country", it becomes difficult to imagine what informed consumer would choose the latter.

All that being said, the gist of WHAT TO EAT can really be boiled down into two words: "information" & "choice". Unfortunately, as Nestle astutely explains, there are a number of interested parties who strive to disseminate dubious information and exert undue influence over the choices we make. I don't get the impression that Nestle set out to write a political book, but in her endeavor to delve into food culture she is forced to confront a simple fact: that much of what we eat is influenced heavily by the American political system. The governmental bodies--namely the FDA, the USDA, and the US Congress--that oversee what we eat owe their livelihood [via political contributions] to lobbying firms which represent food, pesticide, and drug producers. With lobbyists in control of our decision making bodies, the government provides corporations with subsidies, tax breaks, free advertising, and favorable research findings. In the end, these corrupts bargains leave consumers stranded in a market where they can buy a jumbo-sized bag of chemically-processed "Cheeze Doodles" for 99 cents, but a red pepper costs 4 dollars. WHAT TO EAT is never bitter or preachy about this situation, but quietly alerts its readers that a change of national food priorities is desperately needed.