The Vitamin Complex Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection Synopsis
Mad vitamin crazes and military rations, super foods and 'micro-nutrients', the clandestine debate over whether Marmite is food or drug: for centuries, we've been fiddling with our food, for better and for worse. In The Vitamin Complex, Price visits the US Combat Feeding Directorate to sample caffeinated meat sticks and investigates the cartel of pharmaceutical companies who control the world's increasingly synthetic vitamin supply. We learn about the raw ingredients in our favourite fortified foods (think acetone and formaldehyde) and meet William Stark, a British man who tried to live on a pudding-only diet - and died at age 29. Our experiments with food have huge consequences. Combining the wit of Mary Roach with the incisiveness of Michael Pollan, The Vitamin Complex is an eye-opening tour of the science of modern food - and what it's doing to our health.
'Price's sharp wit, skillful and vivid translation of science into story, and valiant inquisitiveness (she insists on tasting synthetic vitamins and gets buzzed on the military's caffeinated meat sticks) make for an electrifying dissection of our vitamin habit in contrast to our irrevocable need for naturally nutrient-rich food.' Booklist
Author
About Catherine Price
Catherine Price is a food and environment reporter whose articles have appeared in Men's Journal, the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Salon and others. She is a past winner of the Gobind Behari Lal prize for science writing. She studied journalism with Michael Pollan at the Unversity of California, Berkeley. She lives in Philadelphia.
