"Blogger Denise Minger might not have heard of public choice theory, but she applies it without remorse to America’s dietary-industrial complex in her first book, Death by Food Pyramid.
The book, Minger says, is part of “a now decade-long quest to reclaim intellectual freedom, demolish bad science, and discover the truth about what we should be eating” that began when she turned to nutrition to address her own health problems.
A “recovered” raw-vegan, Minger first began examining public health with her now-infamous critique of The China Study, published on her blog, RawFoodSOS. In that critique, the self-described “data junkie” proved her skill at detecting and exposing shoddy science.
But in Death by Food Pyramid she goes further. Minger shows that even in the face of improving scientific knowledge, politicians and bureaucrats have allowed special interests to guide American food policy. What follows are the details—the seedy history behind the USDA’s nutrition goals, unpacking the lengthy and tortuous political process that gave us the official Food Guide Pyramid.".........
......"Minger’s chapters on what she calls “sketchy politics” are enough to make the book worth its price. But her attack on “slippery science” is just as interesting, as she takes aim at the cranks, hucksters, charlatans, and “diet gurus hoping you’ll blow half your paycheck on their life-extending line of goji berries and deer antler velvet.”...
