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.
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
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Great eye opener:
Great book! It gives a lot of information about what foods are making us sick and what foods to eat to be healthy.
Interesting...but Ultimately Depressing:
You know, this book isn't at all what I was expecting...I rather got the idea in my head that this was another book like Fast Food Nation, and to some extent it was. This book was really about feeding yourself (as a potential parent) and your children the best foods and discussing the damage done by improper eating on unborn children and then on what we feed our infants and children as they grow up. This book succeeded where none has before in making me feel like the worse parent ever for not breastfeeding... more info
Taken with a grain of salt, it's a must read!:
I had heard two different radio interviews with the author and have kept an eye open for this book ever since. I'm surprised a 2nd Edition has not been released. Some of the opinions may seem radical but with so many physical and mental health problems that have no popular answers, it's good to look at some of the alternative views, and this book has them! From an increase rise in fatal food allegies like peanuts, latex, etc. to the rise in violence and poor decision making, all changes in the world must be... more info
Questionable credibility, disappointing book:
The premise of this book is that the standard Western diet, full of processed food and lacking in nutrition, has a negative effect on mental health. I found it an interesting hypothesis and was looking forward to learning about the evidence that would support it. Unfortunately, I found the book so terrible that I gave up reading it after the introduction and the first chapter. The book was not as well-referenced as I would have liked. There were many statistics (mostly quite negative, to prove the... more info
