Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food

ISBN: 0143108158

Author: Price, Catherine

Condition: New

[An] absorbing and meticulously researched history of the beginnings and causes of our obsession with vitamins and nutrition. -The New York TimesMost of us know nothing about vitamins. Whats more, what we think we know is harming both our personal nutrition and our national health. By focusing on vitamins at the expense of everything else, weve become blind to the bigger picture: despite our belief that vitamins are an absolute good-and the more of them, the better-vitamins are actually small and surprisingly mysterious pieces of a much larger nutritional puzzle. In Vitamania, award-winning journalist Catherine Price offers a lucid and lively journey through our cherished yet misguided beliefs about vitamins, and reveals a straightforward, blessedly anxiety-free path to enjoyable eating and good health.When vitamins were discovered a mere century ago, they changed the destiny of the human species by preventing and curing many terrifying diseases. Yet it wasnt long before vitamins spread from labs of scientists into the realm of food marketers and began to take on a life of their own. The era of vitamania, as one 1940s journalist called it, had begun. Though weve gained much from our embrace of vitamins, what weve lost is a crucial sense of perspective. By buying into a century of hype and advertising, we have accepted the false idea that particular dietary chemicals can be used as shortcuts to health-whether they be antioxidants or omega-3s or, yes, vitamins. And its our vitamin-inspired desire for effortless shortcuts that created todays dietary supplement industry, a veritable Wild West of overpromising miracle substances that can be legally sold without any proof that they are effective or safe.Prices travels to vitamin manufacturers and food laboratories and military testing kitchens-along with her deep dive into the history of nutritional science- provide a witty and dynamic narrative arc that binds Vitamania together. The result is a page-turning exploration of the history, science, hype, and future of nutrition. And her ultimate message is both inspiring and straightforward: given all that we dont know about vitamins and nutrition, the best way to decide what to eat is to stop obsessing and simply embrace this uncertainty head-on.Praise for Vitamania:Measured, funny, and fascinating. The only thing that Catherine Price is selling here is good reporting, engaging storytelling, and more than you thought you could possibly learn about vitamins. If you need vitamins to survive (you do), you should read this book. -Scientific American