Unsavory Truth

How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat

By: Marion Nestle

Narrated by: Norah Tocci

Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

America's leading nutritionist exposes how the food industry corrupts scientific research for profit.

Is chocolate heart-healthy? Does yogurt prevent type-two diabetes? Do pomegranates help cheat death? News accounts bombard us with such amazing claims, report them as science, and influence what we eat. Yet, as Marion Nestle explains, these studies are more about marketing than science; they are often paid for by companies that sell those foods.

Whether it's a Coca-Cola-backed study hailing light exercise as a calorie neutralizer, or blueberry-sponsored investigators proclaiming that this fruit prevents erectile dysfunction, every corner of the food industry knows how to turn conflicted research into big profit. As Nestle argues, it's time to put public health first. With unmatched rigor and insight, Unsavory Truth reveals how the food industry manipulates nutrition science - and suggests what we can do about it.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Marion Nestle (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Nestle delivers a groundbreaking look at how food corporations influence nutrition research and public policy.... General and specialist readers alike will appreciate this important message for consumers." (Publishers Weekly)

"Marion Nestle has been a guiding light for sanity, credibility, and justice in food and nutrition for decades; she stands alone in her field. In Unsavory Truth, she exposes the awful deceptions practiced on eaters by manipulative food companies using 'scientific research' to try to make themselves look good." (Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything)

"In her latest book, Unsavory Truth, Nestle levels a withering fusillade of criticism against food and beverage companies that use questionable science and marketing to push their own agendas about what should end up on our dinner tables.... There is indeed something rotten in the state of dietary science, but books like this show us that we consumers also hold a great deal of power." (Science)

Great uncovering of industry funding

I enjoyed the information on how industry funding has influenced marketing and ultimately purchasing by consumers. this book uncovers the need for transparency and industry requirements of funding on all research. We definitely need more independent funding across the board.

Mind blown!

This is a systematic review of how the information we get is skewed when it comes to food, very good read

A microcosm of the very problem it discusses,

In this book, Dr Nestle reveals and discusses countless instances of research and guidelines influenced by the paymasters of the authors. She derides corporations, who's leaders lobby government, but sees government as potentially free from undue influence —if it just has enough power.

Has she never read Hayek, 'How the worst get on top', does she no nothing of history? Surely she's familiar with both, but her paymasters and powerbrokers are in the State, and she seems to fall victim to the very bias she denounces, unable or unwilling to go against a source of her income and research funds.



She wants government, not corporations, to control others with respect to food -but what does that mean, that she wants people with a monopoly on the right to initiate force against peaceful people (ie, the State) in place of voluntary relations? She should explore this, if that the road she points down.

She claims that 'the governments represent all people'. Really?

And she says that in a better world, companies wouldn't' make unhealthy products. Who decides how healthy? Would I never have eaten ice cream in her putatively better world??

Not a great book, very repetitive, and never gets down to the fundamental issues and/or solution. She does not reason from fundamental principles, like a good scientist or philosopher.

I thought this would be a great book

But the narrator is so boring to listen to!
I listen to books and pods all day
I just can’t follow along w this one.
So disappointed