Pandoras Lunchbox, Melanie Warner
Pandoras Lunchbox, Melanie Warner
2 Rating(s)
List: $17.99 | Sale: $12.59
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Pandora's Lunchbox
How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal

Author: Melanie Warner

Narrator: Ann Marie Lee

Unabridged: 8 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/29/2013


Synopsis

If a piece of individually wrapped cheese retains its shape, color, and texture for years, what does it say about the food we eat and feed our children? Former New York Times reporter and mother Melanie Warner decided to explore that question when she observed the phenomenon of the indestructible cheese. She began an investigative journey that took her to research labs, food science departments, and factories around the country. What she discovered provides a rare, eye-opening—and sometimes disturbing—account of what we're really eating. Warner looks at how decades of food science have resulted in the cheapest, most abundant, most addictive, and most nutritionally devastating food in the world, and she uncovers startling evidence about the profound health implications of the packaged and fast foods that we eat on a daily basis.

From breakfast cereal to chicken subs to nutrition bars, processed foods account for roughly seventy percent of our nation's calories. Despite the growing presence of farmers' markets and organic produce, strange food additives are nearly impossible to avoid. Combining meticulous research, vivid writing, and cultural analysis, Warner blows the lid off the largely undocumented—and lightly regulated—world of chemically treated and processed foods and lays bare the potential price we may pay for consuming even so-called healthy foods.

About Melanie Warner

Melanie Warner is a freelance writer for various publications, including the New York Times, Fast Company, Men's Journal, and CBSNews.com. A former senior writer at Fortune magazine, she has also covered the food industry as a staff writer for the New York Times. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and two young boys.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Henri on April 12, 2013

I got this book because of an interview I heard with the author on NPR. I was intrigued about the history of processed food, especially how/where we source a lot of the ingredients that go into our food. I was disappointed to see a lot of descriptions along the line of "this ingredient is made using......more

Goodreads review by Zach on August 05, 2013

If Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma answers "How should we eat?" Pandora's Lunchbox answers "Why should we eat natural foods?" Spurred by a blog project in which the author let processed food sit and recorded the unsettling lack of decay, this book tracks the historical precedent and health c......more

Goodreads review by Scott on March 15, 2013

I was all set to read Pultizer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Michael Moss's Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us when a friend pointed out that this book, Pandora's Lunchbox, also exists. Written by former Fortune and Times staffer Melanie Warner, and subtitled "How Processed Food T......more

Goodreads review by William on March 16, 2013

There's nothing particularly new or startling in this book - I guess my feeling is that anyone who didn't know about the proliferation of (sometimes very odd) additives and processing techniques hasn't really been paying attention. But the material is presented in a fairly light and at times pretty......more

Goodreads review by Biblio on February 26, 2013

There's some overlap here with Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss, but not as much as you might expect, considering that the topic is the same. While Moss takes a scrappy journalistic approach, Melanie Warner isn't necessarily looking for any dirt. She finds it anyway. You know the story already if you'......more