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A review by lpm100
Fast Food Genocide: How Processed Food Is Killing Us and What We Can Do about It by Joel Fuhrman, Robert Phillips
1.0
1.0 out of 5 stars This book is trash.
Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2019
Verified Purchase
I'd have to say that being abused by this book serves me right for not considering something with such a bombastic title.
Book dynamics:
20 pages of prose.
436 citations total (NONE in chapter 8).
43.6 per chapter.
22 pages per chapter.
When you subtract out all of the hyperbole, this book doesn't really tell us that what we did not know-- Especially if you are a person who has been studying diets for some time. It's not a secret that low density carbohydrates are good, and the foods around the perimeter of the supermarket are more healthy than Twinkies.
The thing about this book that makes me uncomfortable is that Fuhrman tries to turn poor nutritional choices into racism. Just when you thought that the racism argument could not be stretched to include a single other thing, you find out that this author has even gone further. "Even on page 5.... Studies show again and again that in every Health and Social category, African Americans generally fared worse than whites. A primary reason is that systemic racism has led to disenfranchisement, discreet School functioning, and decreased Economic Opportunity that perpetuate poverty and ill-health."
Got all that? Within the first 5 pages of a book about nutrition, this is what he comes up with.
He refers to the town Camden, New Jersey again and again. Camden is a town that has been populated with black people, and has the result of horrible poverty and crime. No surprise here. (It's not like we've never heard of Detroit or Flint or St Louis / East St Louis.)
I also get sick of hearing about genocide. Everything seems to be genocide. Does this mean that because Chinese people are discovering KFC and McDonald's that corporations are an instrument of genocide of the Chinese people? Or, are these free choices that they take, which are fortuitously detrimental to their health?
The author is somewhat spotty with his citations. Many people have noted a link between sugary foods and feeling down the next today, but we now know that the effects are cumulative and long-lasting and can be severe..... Page 46, with nary a citation.
Many of these topics are so complicated that they are open to multiple interpretations. Sometimes, what Fuhrman does could also be called over-interpretation. An example is his repurposing all of the things that took place in the postbellum South in the United States in order to make them into a nutritional drama. (p. 101): " We now know that poor nutrition can create violence, magnify racism and bigotry, and increased tensions between various populations of the world."
Several Pages later (p.104), the author states that that... "Not only did African Americans Embrace education, they also embraced Capitalism and employed the skills they learned as slaves - - only now, they could profit from those skills." He then references Booker T Washington.
But it happens that I *actually read* Booker T Washington, and he stated something completely different to what this author is saying. His discussion was more like about creating training schools where black people could acquire the skills that they needed to, because during the antebellum days they were only useful for low-skilled labor. (Picking cotton.) The reason that Fuhrman's description seems unlikely is because.... When there is a class of capitalists who understand that they can make money as a result of plying trade, that process is not easily unlearned. (Jews have been Merchants and Physicians for probably about 20 centuries now, because they know that those skills are portable and saleable always and everywhere.)
The author also mentions WEB DuBois and Booker T Washington within one paragraph of each other, and it is known that they had diametrically opposed philosophies. There is also confused reasoning (about page 105) where he says that "low
scholastic achievement was related to low school funding." It's almost like he doesn't realize that Washington DC exists. Which is: the best-funded District in the entire United states, with the lowest test scores and the largest number of black people.
"The ideologies of white supremacy created a catastrophe. It empowered people with low status and nutrient deficient dysfunctional brains to be violent toward African-Americans."
Yep. He really wrote that.
I think the only thing that I can say about this book that is consonant with more popular books on this topic in that it determines it does not do any harm to eat more vegetables.
Also, the intermittent fasting protocol is in no way inconsistent with what is written in this book, because it does solve the purpose of consuming fewer calories and keeping insulin low for extended periods of time.
There is a book that just recently came out called Big Fat Surprise, and it directly contradicts what is written in this book with respect to fat consumption. And it doesn't more convincingly than this book.
There are some philosophical questions with this. Furman spends a lot of time trashing the pharmaceutical industry and the fast food industry. But, to be quite Frank, we don't live in Soviet Russia. If you have questions about a healthy diet, then there is no reason you can't walk into a library and check out a book that deals with the subject at length. If people would rather watch American Idol or the Kardashians then attend to their health, I don't know is it the fault of people for being deliberately gullible or the fault of people who know of the existence of that market and take advantage of it.
Verdict: This book is probably not even worth one single dollar. Give it a miss.
Even though there were only 202 pages of prose, and even though it would only have taken me a couple more hours to finish it up.... I stopped this Waste of Trees at page 125 because that was the point in which I decided there was no more to be had from it.
In preference, I would recommend reading "The Obesity Code," by Dr. Jason Fung. And "Big Fat Surprise," by Nina Teichholz.
Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2019
Verified Purchase
I'd have to say that being abused by this book serves me right for not considering something with such a bombastic title.
Book dynamics:
20 pages of prose.
436 citations total (NONE in chapter 8).
43.6 per chapter.
22 pages per chapter.
When you subtract out all of the hyperbole, this book doesn't really tell us that what we did not know-- Especially if you are a person who has been studying diets for some time. It's not a secret that low density carbohydrates are good, and the foods around the perimeter of the supermarket are more healthy than Twinkies.
The thing about this book that makes me uncomfortable is that Fuhrman tries to turn poor nutritional choices into racism. Just when you thought that the racism argument could not be stretched to include a single other thing, you find out that this author has even gone further. "Even on page 5.... Studies show again and again that in every Health and Social category, African Americans generally fared worse than whites. A primary reason is that systemic racism has led to disenfranchisement, discreet School functioning, and decreased Economic Opportunity that perpetuate poverty and ill-health."
Got all that? Within the first 5 pages of a book about nutrition, this is what he comes up with.
He refers to the town Camden, New Jersey again and again. Camden is a town that has been populated with black people, and has the result of horrible poverty and crime. No surprise here. (It's not like we've never heard of Detroit or Flint or St Louis / East St Louis.)
I also get sick of hearing about genocide. Everything seems to be genocide. Does this mean that because Chinese people are discovering KFC and McDonald's that corporations are an instrument of genocide of the Chinese people? Or, are these free choices that they take, which are fortuitously detrimental to their health?
The author is somewhat spotty with his citations. Many people have noted a link between sugary foods and feeling down the next today, but we now know that the effects are cumulative and long-lasting and can be severe..... Page 46, with nary a citation.
Many of these topics are so complicated that they are open to multiple interpretations. Sometimes, what Fuhrman does could also be called over-interpretation. An example is his repurposing all of the things that took place in the postbellum South in the United States in order to make them into a nutritional drama. (p. 101): " We now know that poor nutrition can create violence, magnify racism and bigotry, and increased tensions between various populations of the world."
Several Pages later (p.104), the author states that that... "Not only did African Americans Embrace education, they also embraced Capitalism and employed the skills they learned as slaves - - only now, they could profit from those skills." He then references Booker T Washington.
But it happens that I *actually read* Booker T Washington, and he stated something completely different to what this author is saying. His discussion was more like about creating training schools where black people could acquire the skills that they needed to, because during the antebellum days they were only useful for low-skilled labor. (Picking cotton.) The reason that Fuhrman's description seems unlikely is because.... When there is a class of capitalists who understand that they can make money as a result of plying trade, that process is not easily unlearned. (Jews have been Merchants and Physicians for probably about 20 centuries now, because they know that those skills are portable and saleable always and everywhere.)
The author also mentions WEB DuBois and Booker T Washington within one paragraph of each other, and it is known that they had diametrically opposed philosophies. There is also confused reasoning (about page 105) where he says that "low
scholastic achievement was related to low school funding." It's almost like he doesn't realize that Washington DC exists. Which is: the best-funded District in the entire United states, with the lowest test scores and the largest number of black people.
"The ideologies of white supremacy created a catastrophe. It empowered people with low status and nutrient deficient dysfunctional brains to be violent toward African-Americans."
Yep. He really wrote that.
I think the only thing that I can say about this book that is consonant with more popular books on this topic in that it determines it does not do any harm to eat more vegetables.
Also, the intermittent fasting protocol is in no way inconsistent with what is written in this book, because it does solve the purpose of consuming fewer calories and keeping insulin low for extended periods of time.
There is a book that just recently came out called Big Fat Surprise, and it directly contradicts what is written in this book with respect to fat consumption. And it doesn't more convincingly than this book.
There are some philosophical questions with this. Furman spends a lot of time trashing the pharmaceutical industry and the fast food industry. But, to be quite Frank, we don't live in Soviet Russia. If you have questions about a healthy diet, then there is no reason you can't walk into a library and check out a book that deals with the subject at length. If people would rather watch American Idol or the Kardashians then attend to their health, I don't know is it the fault of people for being deliberately gullible or the fault of people who know of the existence of that market and take advantage of it.
Verdict: This book is probably not even worth one single dollar. Give it a miss.
Even though there were only 202 pages of prose, and even though it would only have taken me a couple more hours to finish it up.... I stopped this Waste of Trees at page 125 because that was the point in which I decided there was no more to be had from it.
In preference, I would recommend reading "The Obesity Code," by Dr. Jason Fung. And "Big Fat Surprise," by Nina Teichholz.