If this is the Gospel of Food, Maybe that Explains Why I’m Not Religious

You know how you can go through life believing and trusting someone until you catch them, maybe not in an outright lie, but in a tiny fib, or an omission, and then everything after that is tainted with confusion as you try to determine just how honest they’re being?

Thus is my relationship with author Barry Glassner and his book The Gospel of Food.

Glassner attempts to debunk a variety of theories and commonly held opinions and beliefs about food and eating, and for the most part, he writes a well-thought-out argument in which he supports his claims. When it suits him. That is, he tends not to bring up any documentation that might refute his claims, which makes me question not just the issues in dispute, but everything he writes.

I can agree with his opening claim that people who enjoy what they eat have more joyful lives overall, as opposed to people who deny themselves real food on the pretense of health or dieting. In the chapter False Prophets he references writer Emily Green who has written against non-fat dairy products and similar items which she refers to as “nonundelows” for their prefixes of non-, un- de- or low-; foods that have been modified to have their nutritional value, fat, calories etc., removed.

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