Fear of Food
A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Introduction
2 Milk: “The Most Valuable and Dangerous Food”
3 Autointoxication & Its Discontents
4 Bacteria & Beef
5 “Lucrezia Borgias in the Kitchen”
6 Vitamania & Its Deficiencies
7 “Hidden Hunger” Stalks the Land
8 Natural Foods in Shangri-la
9 Lipophobia
10 Creating a National Eating Disorder
Coda
Abbreviations for Frequently
Cited Sources
Notes
Index
“With wit, charm, accessibility, and impeccable scholarship (a powerful and unusual quartet), Harvey Levenstein chronicles the long history of Americans’ food fears, tracing their origins, exposing and debunking the self-serving hucksters who promoted them, and, finally, offering his own ‘cure’: healthy skepticism. It’s a riveting record of claims and counter-claims, greed and venality, that will keep you reading and, finally, reassessing your own diet.”
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