12 Titles to Check Out

Here are 12 books to check out. As you’ll see from this list. I tend to like books about food, food history, farming, agriculture and medical history….

1. “Diners, Dudes & Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture” by Emily J. H. Contois. “…food packaging communicates lively, important and complex cultural messages, including notions of identity for brands and consumers.”
2. “Gory Details: Adventures from the Dark Side of Science” by Erika Engelhaupt. “…we miss out when we stop being curious about the parts of life that are gross, awkward or scary.”
3. “Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals” by Hal Herzog. “…Bennett’s law — the desire to eat animals goes up as wealth increases.”
4. “The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home” by Denise Kiernan. “…the design of his house, his impact on the forests, his family, and the legacy he left behind…”
5. “Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World’s Worst Diseases” by Lydia Kang, MD and Nate Pedersen. “…history can’t help but reveal to us that our choices as a species have direct consequences in how we get attacked by disease, in what ways, and how often.”
6. “Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything” by Lydia Kang, MD and Nate Pedersen. “…Being healthy isn’t enough for many of us. We want more…And herein the quack truly thrives.”
7. “Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far” by Paul A. Offit, MD. “People shouldn’t be expected to be their own doctors, but they should be informed about their health so taht at the very least, they can ask good questions.”
8. “Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong” by Paul A. Offit, M.D. “…beware of scientific biases that fit the culture of the time…”
9. “Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat” by Robert Paarlberg. “Quests for purity in food and farming are not as dangerous as they have been in race or religion, but they are just as lacking in scientific justification, and the advocates can be just as exasperating.”
10. “Food Americana: The Remarkable People and the Incredible Stories behind America’s Favorite Dishes” by David Page. “There are nearly 78,000 pizza restaurants in the country…3 billion pizzas sold a year.”
11. “A History of the World in 6 Glasses” by Tom Standage. “The phrase “bread and beer” was also used as an everyday greeting, much like wishing someone good luck or good health.”
12. “Food in History” by Reay Tannahill. “In the long run it was to be the canning of fruits and vegetables rather than of meat that did most for the diet of the world’s industrial workers…”