Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection

Americans are obsessed with nutrition, seeking out the latest trendy foods and taking vitamins and supplements in search of dietary perfection. How do they know whether they are actually eating right? What are vitamins anyway? Price, a journalist specializing in health, seeks to enlighten readers. It seems that even professionally trained nutritionists do not really know what vitamins are. People need them, and deficiencies cause disease, but the experts cannot agree on how much is needed and what the vitamins actually do. This entertaining and informative book traces the history of vitamins and nutritional diseases. It also examines the contemporary emphasis on diet and nutrition that leads people to spend millions of dollars on supplements and enriched foods even though the best way to obtain nutrients is from wholly unprocessed foods. Marketers tout the virtues of these enhanced provisions and encourage people to eat them instead of buying fresh fruits and vegetables. The author offers copious notes to support her research as well as appendixes with details about each vitamin, abbreviations, and definitions. Readers interested in health, and those who enjoy Marion Nestle's books will want to read this work.