The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children - Softcover

Simontacchi, Carol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1585426261 ISBN 13: 9781585426263

Publisher: TarcherPerigee, 2007

Synopsis

An unprecedented and impeccably reported look at how American food manufacturers and their "products" may be endangering our minds.

With obesity becoming one of the fastest-growing worldwide epidemics, and manufactured food fueling that trend, The Crazy Makers is timelier than ever. This updated edition includes a new chapter on autism, as well as revised material that illustrates just how much the industry has changed in a few short years.

Based on extensive research, epidemiological evidence, and a formal study of schoolchildren's eating habits, The Crazy Makers identifies how the latest food products may be literally driving us crazy. Carol Simontacchi offers the reader nutritional primers and recipes to help counteract the problems facing us and our children every time we sit down to eat.

About this title

Review

We already worry that our food makes us fat, dull, disease-prone, and sleepy. Now we have to worry that it also makes us crazy. According to certified clinical nutritionist Carol Simontacchi, the food industries that give us packaged, processed, artificially flavored, chemical-ridden, artificially colored, nutrient-stripped pseudo foods such as sodas, processed soups, sugared cereals, and fiberless bread "wantonly destroy our bodies and our brains, all in the name of profit." We Americans (adults and children) eat 200 pounds of sugar and artificial sweeteners each year. Our children's test scores and grades drop. We become violent, illogical, moody, depressed, drug-addicted, and crazy. The reason, according to the author, who is pursuing a doctorate in brain nutrition, is that we're starving our brains with lack of nutrition.

This isn't a process that begins when teenagers start snacking on sodas, chips, and ice cream. Rather, this nutrition deprivation starts in the womb: mom doesn't get the right nutrition (essential fatty acids, high-quality protein, unrefined carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water), so baby is born already brain-nutrient deficient, says the author. Infant formulas, processed baby food, and sugared cereals exacerbate the problem through the stages of childhood, with kids not getting the nutrition their growing brains need. Simontacchi also skewers prepared foods, additives, over-processed grains, school vending machines, and fast-food chains.

This book isn't only about children. Starbucks and its ilk get a "Crazy Maker Award" for "encouraging us to self-medicate with stimulating beverages that mask the symptoms of nervous system and adrenal exhaustion." We adults are genuinely fatigued, but instead of getting the sleep and rest we need, we succumb to the "marketing hype of sophisticated companies that convinces us that self-medicating with an addictive substance is the answer to our energy crisis." You may not accept all Simontacchi's views, but once you've read this book, you won't reach for a café latte or feed your kids sugar-frosted cereal with the same complacency. --Joan Price

About the Author

Carol Simontacchi, CCN, MS, was the author of a number of books on nutrition including The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children and Your Fat Is Not Your Fault. Simontacchi hosted Your Personal Health, a nationally syndicated radio show that aired on more than 200 stations. She died on November 15, 2011.

Edition details

• Publisher: TarcherPerigee
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1585426261
• ISBN 13: 9781585426263
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352