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Book Reviews of Beating the Food Giants

Beating the Food Giants
Beating the Food Giants
Author: Paul A. Stitt
ISBN-13: 9780939956067
ISBN-10: 0939956063
Pages: 288
Rating:
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0 stars, based on 0 rating
Publisher: Natural Press
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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reviewed Beating the Food Giants on + 7 more book reviews
The author is clearly an idealist who truly wants to help his fellow man, and there were many very good points in this book. However, I was disappointed with it for many reasons. First, the book is promoted as an expose of "the greed and the cover-ups taking place in board rooms and laboratories across the nation," but I did not find that to be the case. He did talk about greed, but no cover-ups were exposed. Indeed, at one point, the author even admits the Food Giants arent intentionally doing anything wrong. I was very much looking forward to reading about what really goes on in the food industry, the additives, preservatives, flavorings, chemicals, etc., and what they are known to do to human health, but none of that was forthcoming as firsthand knowledge. Second, though it's true the author did work for "The Food Giants" as a food scientist, he actually only worked for them for four years -- decades ago -- and only a small part of the information in this book seems drawn from that experience. Theres very little discussion of things he witnessed firsthand about what goes on inside the food processing industry. Third, the author is a biochemist, but there's very little science presented. Maybe he wanted to keep it simple for the layperson's sake, but I would've liked a little more science. The vast majority of his references are third parties' books instead of actual studies, and for statistical information, he references The Information Please Almanac instead of going to the source. Fourth, and least important, there was no date of publication or copyright date in the book, so I wasnt even sure when the book was written. The only clue is that the Forward was written in 1993. (The book also lacks an index.) Lastly, the book in its entirety is available online at http://www.whale.to/v/stitt_b1.html#FOREWORD_. With all that said, I still liked the book. I just don't think it lived up to its hype.