Terrors of the Table
The Curious History of Nutrition
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- $36.99
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- $36.99
Publisher Description
Terrors of the Table is an absorbing account of the struggle to find the necessary ingredients of a healthy diet, and the fads and quackery that have always waylaid the unwary and the foolish when it comes to the matter of food and health. Walter Gratzer tells the tale of nutrition's heroes, heroines and charlatans with characteristic crispness and verve. We find an array of colourful personalities, from the distinguished but quarrelsome Liebig, to the enterprising Lydia Pinkham. But we also find the slow recognition that the lack of vital ingredients can cause terrible illnesses - scurvy, rickets, beriberi. These diseases stalked the poor in the West even into the 20th century, and scandalously remain in poorer parts of the world today. The narrative stretches from classical times to the modern day and gives a valuable historical perspective to our current understanding. It also highlights some of the problems faced by the developed world regarding health today - in particular diabetes and obesity. And despite our far greater understanding of what our body needs, there are still many who would fall for fads and fancy diets - some dangerous, others just daft.
Of course, the story of nutrition does not end there. We have discovered the key vitamins and minerals our body needs, but research continues on the connections between diet, health and disease. The body's biochemistry is complex, and there are no easy answers, no magic formula, that applies to all individuals. The safest and most rational course would seem to be a sensible, moderate, and varied diet, not forgetting that 'a little of what you fancy does you good'.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gratzer (Eurekas and Euphorias), a biophysicist, has a viewpoint on nutrition's history that is more informed than most popular accounts and distinct from those given by doctors or dieticians, but his book is marred by a muddled structure and its focus on just a few centuries and areas of the world, as well as an excess of extraneous biographical material. It begins, inexplicably, with a chapter devoted to rickets, followed by one on scurvy; the cases are unquestionably relevant, but many readers may wonder how nutrition in prehistory set the stage for these problems. Gratzer does address earlier theories about food, beginning with Galen's teachings on the four humours, but he says little about actual practice, instead dedicating pages to a quarrel between nineteenth century chemists Justus von Liebig and Jean-Baptiste Dumas, and the personal life of physiologist Claude Bernard. Still, the descriptions of bizarre, often frightening experiments such as Joseph Goldberger's "filth parties," in which participants ate feces and scabs and rubbed infected mucus into their noses and mouths, are fascinating, and Gratzer writes clearly and conversationally, making segments like his tale about the discovery of vitamins, which answered many of nutrition's nagging questions, surprisingly engaging. He winds up by discussing a long succession of diets and fads, an oft-told story made all the more depressing for the way it highlights how, even after the breakthroughs Gratzer details, humans still seem ignorant about such a basic aspect of life. 16 pages of illustrations not seen by PW.
