Nutrition, health, and food safety
Websites and online publications
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Nutrition DigestShort articles on subjects in food, food supply, nutrition, and public health.
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National Academies Press: Food and NutritionFree research publications on topics related to food and nutrition.
Books
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Eat, drink, and be wary : how unsafe is our food? by Food safety has fast become one of the nation's top issues. Three thousand people die each year in the U.S. from foodborne illnesses. Another 48 million are sickened annually and our government fails to protect us. Many foods and additives that we eat every day have been banned for years in other countries. Our government food safety agencies move in reverse--cutting back on inspections, allowing food producers to inspect themselves, and permitting the vast majority of potentially adulterated foods to enter this country without benefit of any testing or inspection. How, in a country so advanced in most areas, could we have descended to this alarming state of food safety? One answer: Budget cuts and bureaucrats. Eat, Drink, and Be Wary examines the multitude of dangers in food production, transportation, storing, and preparation that result in this shocking number of preventable illnesses and deaths. It takes a broad and detailed look, in all food groups, at the problems and potential solutions in food safety practices, inspections, and enforcements. This book answers the questions and concerns of millions of Americans who have reached new levels of serious doubts about the safety of our food. Charles Duncan points readers to the dangers to look for in deli foods, raw milk, seafood, poultry, eggs, beef, and others. For consumers who care about the food they eat, this book details the dangers, offers direction for choosing safe foods, and provides a critique of our current system that suggests ways it can be fixed, or at least improved.Call Number: RA601.5 .D86 2015ISBN: 9781442238398Publication Date: 2015-01-15 -
Environmental health sourcebook : basic consumer health information about the environment and its effects on human health... by Provides basic consumer health information about the health effects of environmental hazards and diseases linked to environmental causes, with facts about the impact on specific populations. Includes index, glossary of related terms, and other resources.Call Number: RA565 .E484 2016ISBN: 9780780813519Publication Date: 2015-09-30 -
A big fat crisis : the hidden forces behind the obesity epidemic - and how we can end it by Obesity is the public health crisis of the twenty-first century. Over 150 million Americans are overweight or obese, and across the globe an estimated 1.5 billion are affected. InA Big Fat Crisis, Dr. Deborah A. Cohen has created a major new work that will transform the conversation surrounding the modern weight crisis. Based on her own extensive research, as well as the latest insights from behavioral economics and cognitive science, Cohen reveals what drives the obesity epidemic and how we, as a nation, can overcome it. Cohen argues that the massive increase in obesity is the product of two forces. One is the immutable aspect of human nature, namely the fundamental limits of self-control and the unconscious ways we are hard-wired to eat. And second is the completely transformed modern food environment, including lower prices, larger portion sizes, and the outsized influence of food advertising. We live in a food swamp, where food is cheap, ubiquitous, and insidiously marketed. This, rather than the much-discussed "food deserts," is the source of the epidemic. The conventional wisdom is that overeating is the expression of individual weakness and a lack of self-control. But that would mean that people in this country had more willpower thirty years ago, when the rate of obesity was half of what it is today! The truth is that our capacity for self-control has not shrunk; instead, the changing conditions of our modern world have pushed our limits to such an extent that more and more of us are simply no longer up to the challenge. Ending this public health crisis will require solutions that transcend the advice found in diet books. Simply urging people to eat less sugar, salt, and fat has not worked.A Big Fat Crisis offers concrete recommendations and sweeping policy changes--including implementing smart and effective regulations and constructing a more balanced food environment--that represent nothing less than a blueprint for defeating the obesity epidemic once and for all.Call Number: RA645 .O23 C64 2014ISBN: 9781568589671Publication Date: 2013-12-24 -
Eating dangerously : why the government can't keep your food safe... and how you can by Americans are afraid of their food. And for good reason. In 2011, the deadliest food-borne illness outbreak in a century delivered killer listeria bacteria on innocuous cantaloupe never before suspected of carrying that pathogen. Nearly 50 million Americans will get food poisoning this year. Spoiled, doctored or infected food will send more than 100,000 people to the hospital. Three thousand will die. We expect, even assume, our government will protect our food, but how often do you think a major U.S. food farm get inspected by federal or state officials? Once a year? Every harvest? Twice a decade? Try never. Eating Dangerously sheds light on the growing problem and introduces readers to the very real, very immediate dangers inherent in our food system. This two-part guide to our food system's problems and how consumers can help protect themselves is written by two seasoned journalists, who helped break the story of the 2011 listeria outbreak that killed 33 people. Michael Booth and Jennifer Brown, award-winning health and investigative journalists and parents themselves, answer pressing consumer questions about what's in the food supply, what "authorities" are and are not doing to clean it up, and how they can best feed their families without making food their full-time jobs. Both deeply informed and highly readable, Eating Dangerously explains to the American consumer how their food system works--and more importantly how it doesn't work. It also dishes up course after course of useful, friendly advice gleaned from the cutting-edge laboratories, kitchens and courtrooms where the national food system is taking new shape. Anyone interested in knowing more about how their food makes it from field and farm to store and table will want the inside scoop on just how safe or unsafe that food may be. They will find answers and insight in these pages.Call Number: RA601 .B66 2015ISBN: 9781442248663Publication Date: 2015-09-16 -
Essentials of Life Cycle Nutrition by Essentials of Life Cycle Nutrition is a more basic version of the author's larger text, Nutrition in the Life Cycle: An Evidenced-Based Approach, without the high-level research basics more appropriate for advanced nutrition courses. It covers nutrition requirements through out the life span, with a special emphasis on both pregnancy and end of life issues. Including over 100 illustrations, photos and tables, Essentials provides a look into contemporary nutritional issues such as pediatric vegetarianism, childhood obesity, diabetes, eating disorders, chronic disease, pharmacologic considerations, physical activity and weight management, and unique nutrition needs in the older adult. The text also provides a full spectrum of the nutritional guidelines to begin the solid preparation needed for a career in practice.Call Number: QP141 .E87 2011ISBN: 9780763777920Publication Date: 2010-02-18 -
Free for all: fixing school food in America (E-book) by How did our children end up eating nachos, pizza, and Tater Tots for lunch? Taking us on an eye-opening journey into the nation's school kitchens, this superbly researched book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of school food in the United States. Janet Poppendieck explores the deep politics of food provision from multiple perspectives--history, policy, nutrition, environmental sustainability, taste, and more. How did we get into the absurd situation in which nutritionally regulated meals compete with fast food items and snack foods loaded with sugar, salt, and fat? What is the nutritional profile of the federal meals? How well are they reaching students who need them? Opening a window onto our culture as a whole, Poppendieck reveals the forces--the financial troubles of schools, the commercialization of childhood, the reliance on market models--that are determining how lunch is served. She concludes with a sweeping vision for change: fresh, healthy food for all children as a regular part of their school day.Call Number: LB3479 .U6 P55 2010 EBISBN: 9780520944411Publication Date: 2010-01-04 -
Childhood Obesity in America by A century ago, a plump child was considered a healthy child. No longer. An overweight child is now known to be at risk for maladies ranging from asthma to cardiovascular disease, and obesity among American children has reached epidemic proportions. Childhood Obesity in America traces the changes in diagnosis and treatment, as well as popular understanding, of the most serious public health problem facing American children today. Excess weight was once thought to be something children outgrew, or even a safeguard against infectious disease. But by the mid-twentieth century, researchers recognized early obesity as an indicator of lifelong troubles. Debates about its causes and proper treatment multiplied. Over the century, fat children were injected with animal glands, psychoanalyzed, given amphetamines, and sent to fat camp. In recent decades, an emphasis on taking personal responsibility for one's health, combined with commercial interests, has affected the way the public health establishment has responded to childhood obesity--and the stigma fat children face. At variance with this personal emphasis is the realization that societal factors, including fast food, unsafe neighborhoods, and marketing targeted at children, are strongly implicated in weight gain. Activists and the courts are the most recent players in the obesity epidemic's biography. Today, obesity in this age group is seen as a complex condition, with metabolic, endocrine, genetic, psychological, and social elements. Laura Dawes makes a powerful case that understanding the cultural history of a disease is critical to developing effective health policy.Call Number: RJ399 .C6 D39 2014ISBN: 9780674281448Publication Date: 2014-06-09
