Food Rules!: The Stuff You Munch, Its Crunch, Its Punch, and Why You Sometimes Lose Your Lunch

A comprehensive book on food and nutrition includes mouthwatering stories, jokes, recipes, rumors, silly facts, and zany illustrations to make the science of food fun. Simultaneous.

Gr 3-8-Yet another entry in the new and growing discipline of "grossology" that some kids are sure to eat up. Some of the information is quite useful, such as the tips on how to read a nutrition label. The book also contains lots of nauseous factoids. Haduch and Stromoski paint a vivid picture of food breakdown quite unlike anything found in Paul Showers's What Happens to a Hamburger? (HarperCollins, 1985). Unfortunately, the numerous asides-riddles, jokes, and unsubstantiated facts-appear sideways in minuscule type printed in yellow and black ink. Statements such as "a big can of cooked green beans that was picked last year has more vitamins than a bag of raw green beans picked last week" and "Guinea pigs provide about half of the meat eaten in Peru" beg for documentation. Younger readers may be better served by Lizzy Rockwell's Good Enough to Eat (HarperCollins, 1999); older readers will get more information out of Janice VanCleave's Food and Nutrition for Every Kid (Wiley, 1999).

Marilyn Payne Phillips, University City Public Library, MO

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