The Gospel Of Food: Why We Should Stop Worrying and Enjoy What We Eat [Paperback]

The title sums up the premise of Glassner's book fairly accurately. He makes several valid points throughout the book, but they ultimately get lost, due to a lack of organization, signposting, and an overarching tendency simply to pick holes in the arguments of others without really stating his own position very clearly.

The book lacks structural coherence - the chapters resemble scattered essays without a unifying concept. The opening and closing chapters are generally concerned with establishing that much of the received wisdom about food is highly questionable (e.g., recommended daily allowances, nutritional guidelines, epidemiological claims that a given food is harmful, the demonization of McDonald's and fast food generally, overblown claims linking obesity to mortality). But two chapters in the middle of the book - "Restaurant Heaven" and "The Food Adventurers" - seem completely out of place, being little more than a catalog of memorable meals the author has been privileged to enjoy in various fancy restaurants. One doesn't begrudge Glassner his dream dinners prepared by Daniel Boulud or Thomas Keller, but the rapturous descriptions included here are a pointless self-indulgence, which seem to have little to do with the rest of the book. And I think most of us don't need to have it pointed out that restaurant critics are likely to get better meals and service than your average nondescript diner.

In the end, the book is disappointing, in that the valid points that Glassner has to make get lost in a welter of irrelevant detail and poor organization. Nonetheless, his overall message, that it is perverse to obsess about food to the extent that we no longer enjoy it, is an important one.

It's shocking to say the least that I'm the first on amazon.ca to review this as what are you people out there reading? Barry Glassner (a former USC sociology prof) wrote one of the best books ever called The Culture Of Fear. Well, he proves now he can write on pretty much any subject as he tackles food in all its wondrous forms and addresses much of the weird (yes, I'll say "weird") paranoia people in North America now seem to have over what they eat.

As someone who is not a bloated whale and eats everything not nailed down because, frankly, how will you know if you'll like any kind of food without trying it, this book blows the lid off many of the ill-informed food scares of modern America.

It is also balanced and the author enjoys fine dining as well as seeing the merits of fast food...and you'll be surprised at his reasons why. Food Nation was a book that exposed the food industry. The Gospel of Food is more a need to bring back the joy of actually eating and not worrying ourselves to death over every calorie, every additive and to just gain some perspective on how society came from where all of us were, say, centuries ago to now.

It's definitely something I think everyone should read so they can go back to enjoying what they eat yet with the knowledgeof food scares and warnings put in their proper perspective.

The author makes several thought provoking points and takes a definite Devil's Advocate approach to the current cultural obsession with "food is bad." I quite enjoyed the read, despite the lack of organization mentioned by the other reviewers.