“Delivers an enthusiastic introduction to nutritional epidemiology . . . Using simple illustrations and his trademark humor to demystify scientific analysis that doesn’t always prove cause and effect, Zaidan empowers readers to make their own dietary decisions.” —Shelf Awareness, starred reviewCheese puffs. Coffee. Sunscreen. Vapes. George Zaidan reveals what will kill you, what won’t, and … what won’t, and why—explained with high-octane hilarity, hysterical hijinks, and other things that don’t begin with the letter H.
INGREDIENTS offers the perspective of a chemist on the stuff we eat, drink, inhale, and smear on ourselves. Apart from the burning question of whether you should eat those Cheetos, Zaidan explores a range of topics. Here’s a helpful guide:
Stuff in this book:
– How bad is processed food? How sure are we?
– Is sunscreen safe? Should you use it?
– Is coffee good or bad for you?
– What’s your disease horoscope?
– What is that public pool smell made of?
– What happens when you overdose on fentanyl in the sun?
– What do cassava plants and Soviet spies have in common?
– When will you die?
Stuff in other books:
– Your carbon footprint
– Food sustainability
– GMOs
– CEO pay
– Science funding
– Politics
– Football
– Baseball
– Any kind of ball, really
Zaidan, an MIT-trained chemist who cohosted CNBC’s hit Make Me a Millionaire Inventor and wrote and voiced several TED-Ed viral videos, makes chemistry more fun than Hogwarts as he reveals exactly what science can (and can’t) tell us about the packaged ingredients sold to us every day. Sugar, spinach, formaldehyde, cyanide, the ingredients of life and death, and how we know if something is good or bad for us—as well as the genius of aphids and their butts—are all discussed in exquisite detail at breakneck speed.
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If you crossed Bill Nye with Stephen Colbert, you’d get George Zaidan. Ingredients is a masterful piece of science writing.
If you ever thought that chemistry might be really interesting (it is), but your eyes glazed over in high school chem class, this is the book for you. George Zaidan will keep you laughing out loud as he shares the wonders of our most useful, practical science, with brilliant analogies that even an 11-year old can understand.
Ok, buckle up: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
~from Ingredients by George Zaidan
The cover art alone clued me in that George Zaidan’s book Ingredients would be an entertaining approach to science.
I must confess, I did not do well in high school chemistry. The class met at 2 pm in the afternoon; the classroom was too warm, the subject too dry, and I was not the only student who dozed off. Mr. Heald would kick the metal trash can to wake us up.
Zaidan is a ‘science communicator’ who understands people like me and knows how to make chemistry understandable. He draws pictures and diagrams and talks us through. He is our personal decoder, translating the language of scientific research into English “as accurately and entertainingly as possible.”
In the Preface, Zaidan admits that his readings surprised him.
Facts are shifty things. Because science, we learn, is not exact. There are so many ways to set up and twist results, so many variables, that we can’t trust all the trial results that we read about.
You know the ones I am talking about. Wait five minutes and you will hear a study from Podunk U that reverses yesterday’s study from Wossamotta U.
Caffeine is good for you, caffeine is bad for you. Eggs are good sources of nutrition, eggs are bad for your heart. Butter is bad for you, butter is better than margarine, olive oil is better than anything and its used in the Mediterranean Diet which will extend your life.
Life’s big questions are the center of Zaidan’s quest for knowledge:
How much life does every additional Cheeto suck from your body?
Are e-cigarettes really a healthier choice?
Is coffee the elixir of life of blood of the devil?
Does chlorine create that public pool smell?
Does sunscreen absorb photons like Whitney Houston’s bodyguard absorbs bullets in The Bodyguard?
Should we pay attention to newspaper headlines about food and health
How can I add three years to my life expectancy
Does prayer reduce the risk of death?
His conclusions are not as conclusive as we would like. The biggies are still there: Don’t smoke. Be active. Eat reasonably well.
I appreciated how Zaidan broke down the way tests and studies are carried out. It was the most interesting aspect of the book for me.
I was given a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that food is very important, and yet we are terrible at talking about it. Nutrition is a mess of marketing, classism, science, truth, guilt, confusion, and outright hucksterism. Ingredients lifts the film from our eyes with humor and reassurance.
At last, a book on nutrition that tries to make you understand how little we know instead of offering blanket prognostications. If instead of a simple solution, you want a guide to how to think about health, this is it.
If you are looking for a guide in understanding the everyday chemistry of our lives, you could not do better than George Zaidan. And his book, Ingredients, is everything that should lead you to expect: funny, edgy, fascinating, dismaying, reassuring, and overall, just incredibly smart.
By all means, pick up George Zaidan’s high-octane Ingredients if you want to know more about Cheetos, sunscreen, butter substitutes, and other fascinating bits of everyday chemistry. But above all, you should buy Ingredients because it teaches you how to think better — like a smart, informed, and wickedly funny scientist.
Through incredibly weird and wonderful analogies (and delightfully nerdy wit), George helps you understand how scientists work toward the truth. I wish he’d rewrite all of my high school science textbooks!