An Apple a Day: The Myths, Misconceptions, and Truths About the Foods We Eat

All of Schwarcz's books that I've read are well written, informative and entertaining. In addition, this particular one is the most rational and science based nutrition book that I've found. Most news stories about food are based on data from poorly run or incomplete studies and often only determine correlations rather than cause and effect. In contrast, Schwartz critically reviews all available study data, identifies data limitations, and then states what conclusions can scientifically be drawn from it. A breath of intelligent fresh air.

Most of us don't know what to eat anymore with all the marketing out there, this book touches on a lot of subjects, I suppose it would be hard to go in-depth and keep the book under 500 pages. I enjoyed it, you can read it bit by bit and look for certain information or you can go cover to cover. An easy read. It doesn't answer all my questions but at this point, I don't think anything will :)Also - fast shipping and a great price.

Good read

Joe Schwarcz tells us what to eat and backs his advice up with the best and most verified lab results from all over the world. If you just love chemistry you'll love this book but if you care about yourself you'll find him a treasure chest of tips to live a long healthy time.

"Phew! That was a lot to digest, wasn't it?"Those are the words author Joe Schwarcz uses at the conclusion of his book which is jam-packed with the latest data, debates, and drama about the foods (and chemicals <gasp!> therein) we eat. His book is indeed a full-course meal...and then some.First, he leads us through a tour of naturally occurring substances in our food supply, including flax, fiber, omega-3 fats, antioxidants, flavanols, vitamins, and minerals. Next, he presents the most controversial issues related to the manipulation of our food supply: fortifying with iron and fluoride; sweetening with natural and artificial sweeteners; manipulating genes in our food; and preserving with sulphites, viruses, and radiation. Then, he takes us up close and personal with the contaminants in our food supply, including pesticides, hormones, BPA, PCBs, and dioxins. And, finally, Joe leads us through the nutritional hype surrounding some of the latest nutritional fads such as goji juice, detoxing, DHEA, and green tea.It's likely your head will be spinning after consuming all the nutritional chemistry, controversy and and commentary that Joe serves up. (And, to answer his question above: yes, it is a lot to digest!) He does do an impressive job in guiding us through the maze of myths, misconceptions and truths about the foods we eat, but--as food science is rarely a conclusive one--be prepared to be confused at times. Fortunately, Joe offers relief at the end of the book, to help us digest it all:"There is more to life than worrying about every morsel of food we put into our mouths. What matters is the overall diet...When you carefully scrutinize the scientific studies that are being rolled out almost on a daily basis, most amount to no more than tinkering with the basic nutritional principles we have tried to lay down: eat mostly foods based on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products, and don't overeat."Whew.

Near the end of the book, Joe Schwarcz quotes Mark Twain's famous maxim that "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." If (some of) the reviews for this book are any indication, Dr. Joe was right: scientific scrutiny is unlikely to change anyone's mind. People continue to smoke, people continue to eat mostly red meat, etc. Those people who eat red meat and smoke are often willing to admit they are participating in unhealthy behaviour. So much more, then, is it difficult or impossible to convince people through the scientific literature that their preconceived notions are not correct when the topic is not something for which literally billions of people have served as experimental subjects (through their normal activities). That is an observation that is mostly independent of the book's qualities as prose and entertainment, but it does identify the point from which this book starts.In a series of bite-sized chapters (3-5 pages), Schwarcz takes us through some of the topics he's encountered and researched in his role as a science commentator over the last 30 (?) years. As such, I would suggest that the topics are a little skewed to the supplements side - there are many chapters devoted to particular dietary supplements with supposedly miraculous effects (to cure cancer, lose weight, etc.). These claims are usually laughably easy to dismiss because the "evidence" of their efficacy is non-existent. The book is much more interesting when he tackles issues of pesticides, teflon, and artificial sweeteners. Generally, the scientific literature shows that the amounts of these items in an average diet are so small as to be non-issues. Sure, they cause cancer - in amounts millions of times as large as humans take in. And these amounts are far less than the naturally occurring carcinogens that we are exposed to automatically because we breath and eat food. This leads to the primary thesis of the book, with which no nutritional expert could argue: eat a good balanced diet that emphasizes vegetables, fruit, and whole grains.This thesis is proven again and again throughout the book, and the primary problem of this book is its repetative nature. In trying to keep each chapter reasonably autonomous, and because the conclusions are virtually the same each time, the author cannot possibly make the book entertaining for long reading times. It's more of a "pick up, read a bit, put down for a couple days" kind of book.Other reviewers have objected to the lack of footnotes. This is a valid criticism; I suppose it was a conscious choice on the author's and editor's parts (for ease of readability). Certainly I would have prefered if the studies he cites were more clearly referenced. (Rise and Fall of the Third Reich had thousands of references, so it's insulting to think that the reader would pass on buying the book simply because they are in there, especially as this book's raison d'etre is to bring to the public the objective scientific conclusions on the nutritional questions raised in the book). I would add the criticism that two hot-button nutritional issues are not dealt with. (1) Bisphenol-A, a monomer used in polycarbonate synthesis, has been banned by Health Canada and others, but ruled safe (in the amounts present in polycarbonate drinking and storage vessels) by the FDA. Based on the number of articles I see (in newspapers and even the American Chemical Society's magazine), this chemical is perfectly positioned for the Dr. Joe treatment, and I find it curious that it is omitted. (2) Perhaps because this movement has only gained real traction since the book was written it was not included, but the "eat local" mantra is in conflict with the "eat lots of variety" mantra espoused by nutritionists and featured prominently in the book. If you live in a breadbasket (e.g. California), you can have a widely varied diet throughout the year. If you live in a northern clime (e.g. northern Minnesota, most of Canada), you will not have access to locally grown fresh fruit and veggies for most of the year. Eating as Dr. Schwarcz suggests would leave you with an enormous carbon footprint due to the transportation and refrigeration costs of moving the food from southern locations.It is also curious that Dr. Joe never mentions the placebo effect. Some remedies are effective because the patient thinks they will be effective. Sure, double-blind studies take this into account (people receiving the placebo and the test compound are both going to benefit from the placebo effect, so any additional effect in the test group will be due to the efficacy of the test compound), but anecdotal "evidence" is easy to accumulate by charletons, and these testamonials can certainly be true! If you're one of the lucky ones whose cancer goes into remission at the same time as you started drinking three litres of acai juice a day, you will certainly "know" that the acai juice caused the remission. So it's my unfortunate conclusion that Dr. Joe is singing to the choir with this book - those with a scientific/statistical background will be convinced, but we were convinced anyways. Those who are the statistical outliers will still be convinced of their positions, and the charletans will continue to make money off of them.

I use this book as part of a Nutrition course I have on-line at http://SchoolofCT.com. It's compulsory reading. Dr Schwarcz makes the reader think about what they are learning about food. No conclusions are forced upon the reader, just a solid ground of information. I highly recommend picking up a copy, reading and sharing.

I've recommended this book to many of my friends. The chapters are all about 4 pages so you can put it down anytime without losing the flow. His writing style is very good: easy to read, factual, with a bit of humour to make it enjoyable. Buy it - you won't regret it.

I bought this book based on two 5 star customer reviews, and because at the time, it was 94th in books, here at amazon.ca. I've purchased many books on nutrition from amazon, and this is the only one I sent back.Coming from a Canadian author, I was hoping to like this book, but after reading the small section entitled "Milk and Calcium", I lost a lot of respect for this man as a "nutrition authority".I think the author could have produced a better book if he'd written in greater depth, on fewer subjects, the ones he was most knowledgeable on. Dairy products are not one of those subjects, and his bias in their favour is painfully obvious.He portrays the anti-dairy segment of our society as being primarily animal rights and vegetarian organizations, and claims that independent researchers fall on the side of the dairy industry for milk's health benefits.  Don't Drink Your Milk!: New Frightening Medical Facts About the World's Most Overrated Nutrient  ( While this book is dated, the number of medical doctors recommending against consuming cow's milk, has continued to grow.)He acknowledges that, "Milk stands accused of contributing to heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, diabetes, allergies, stomach cramps, diarrhea, autism, mucus production, and, get this, bone fractures!"What he fails to acknowledge, is the theory that's becoming more widely accepted among the nutritional science community for why cow's milk may not be a positive contributing factor for bone health; that the milk proteins can contribute to an acidosis of the blood, pulling calcium from the bones to maintain a stable pH level, and negatively impacting calcium balance in the body.He continues, "But milk is also linked with reducing heart disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and of course, bone fracture.""The anti-milk arguments often begin with the observation that no other species except humans drink milk after weaning." ( Again, he neglects to mention the rest of the story. That in Nature, no other species would ever consume the "breast milk" of another species, regardless of stage of life.) "That's hardly a compelling argument. No other species designs airplanes, develops antibiotics, or bakes bread either."He tries to refute the Nurse's Health Study by suggesting that the nurses who were drinking the most milk, were doing so, not because they liked it, but because they knew they had a genetic predisposition and/or other risk factors for osteoporosis, and believed that consuming more cow's milk would help them. So, to his way of thinking, drinking more milk was largely a reflection of an overall greater osteoporotic risk in general, and therefore milk should not be singled out and blamed for the increased incidence of hip fracture seen in the Nurse's Health Study. As the extra milk was possible beneficial, but just not beneficial enough to overcome the other risks within this "self-selected subgroup". While the lead author of this study may lend some support for that hypothesis, her coauthor, Dr. Walter Willet, does not.In this short chapter, the author refers to the heavy environmental contamination of dairy as a "trace of dioxin". He acknowledges that dairy fat is a problem, but suggests we eat low-fat dairy, and reduce saturated fat in our diets elsewhere.He doesn't get into the tumour-promoting properties of casein, the primary protein in cow's milk. Likewise, he stays right away from the whole raw milk issue, or movement, and the destruction of nutrients through pasteurization. There's no discussion on grass-fed, as opposed to grain-fed cows, or any issues relating to factory farming. Although he does give brief mention to Insulin-Like Growth Factor.Most people who know anything about nutrition, know that 2% cow's milk actually contains over 30% of calories from fat. The dairy industry likes to mislead, or deceive the public, by measuring "water" weight, rather than counting calories.This author pulls a similar stunt with calcium. He boasts, " A glass of milk contains about 300 milligrams of calcium, a cup of yogurt 400. By comparison, the best vegetable source is broccoli, with about 100 milligrams per cup".Of course, he's not only wrong about broccoli being the best vegetable source of calcium, ( bok choy and kale are both significantly higher ) but he doesn't bother to mention that a cup of broccoli contains only about a third the calories of a cup of milk, and, like other cruciferous vegetables, broccoli has a far superior nutrient-profile. He does recommend broccoli in a different part of the book.There is some comic relief in the author's explanation for why large segments of the world's population are lactose intolerant. Apparently, the human species evolved hand in hoof with the dairy cow. But centuries ago, the tsetse fly spread sleeping sickness throughout much of Africa and Asia, decimating cattle populations. So, not having access to cow's milk, human populations, over time, lost much of their "natural" ability to make lactase, the enzyme responsible for lactose digestion.While some primitive populations did thrive on diets containing some cow's milk, it's important to make the distinction that what they consumed is a far cry from what is available to us today at the grocery store. Derived largely from grain-fed cows pumped up on growth hormone to increase milk production ( at least in the U.S. ), and antibiotics to ward off sickness inherent to the animal's living conditions, much of the already compromised nutrition in modern day cow's milk is destroyed through pasteurization. And diary fat today, contains more dioxin, and more environmental contaminates in general, than any other food North Americans are likely to consume.The author claims that while "milk may not be a miracle food, it can contribute significantly to a healthy diet. It assuredly is not poison, as suggested by the likes of PETA".Webster's Dictionary defines poison as, "a substance that through it's chemical action can injure or kill".It's debatable whether cow's milk, as it's generally produced today, is actually poison, but it most assuredly is, crap!While "milk and calcium" is admittedly a very very small portion of this book, in my eyes, the author has seriously undermined his credibility.Do I now trust or care what he says about fluoride added to tap water? No!Who do I trust? If you want to know what the medical literature says about diet and health, read Joel Fuhrman's  Eat to Live . Don't Drink Your Milk!: New Frightening Medical Facts About the World's Most Overrated NutrientEat to Live