Measured Meals
eBook - PDF

Measured Meals

Nutrition in America

  1. 224 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Measured Meals

Nutrition in America

About this book

Provides an alternative history of nutrition in the U.S. that focuses on the power of scientific language.

2009 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

As nutritional studies proliferate, producing more and more knowledge about the connection between diet and health, Americans seem increasingly confused about what to eat to stay healthy. In Measured Meals, Jessica J. Mudry looks at the language used in the United States to communicate about health and nutrition, and reveals its effects on reframing, reshaping, and controlling what and how Americans eat. Analyzing the USDA and American federal food guidelines over the past one hundred years, Mudry shows how the language of nutrition has evolved over time. She critiques the trend of discussing food in terms of quantification-calories, vitamins, and serving sizes. She also examines how organizations such as the USDA attempt to legislate a healthy diet by mandating quantities of food based on measurable nutrients, revealing the power of language to make meaning and influence social action.

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Yes, you can access Measured Meals by Jessica J. Mudry in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Rhetoric. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Measured Meals
  2. Contents
  3. Illustrations
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Introduction. Eating by Numbers: How Language Shapes Food and Eating
  6. 1. The Early History ofAmerican Nutrition Research: From Quality to Quantity
  7. 2. Reading Federal Nutrition Guides: Quantification as Communication Strategy
  8. 3. The Food Pyramid: Visualizing Quantification
  9. 4. Scaling the Pyramid: Criticisms of the USDA
  10. 5. Talking about Taste: Alternatives to a Discourse of Quantifi cation
  11. Conclusion. Rethinking Common SenseToward a Rhetoric of Eating
  12. Notes
  13. References
  14. Index