Marion Nestle swings through the turnstile of a Vons supermarket near downtown, her observational antennae already on high alert.
"Oh, my God!" exclaims the nutrition researcher, food activist and self-styled supermarket anthropologist, abandoning her cart and practically running down the front of the store. She pulls down cans to read labels, and stares up at the mountains of sweet drinks that cascade from the end of the aisles like postmodern sculptures.
The petite New Yorker pauses to do some rapid calculations, then pulls a tiny digital camera from her blazer pocket and snaps a shot.
"The real estate devoted to this!" she exclaims. "This entire double aisle ... colas! Sprites! Candies!"
Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, loves food. In two earlier books\o7 -- "\f7Safe Food" and "Food Politics" -- the outspoken professor took on topics such as industry influences on government food guidelines. Now she has written a practical book for consumers: "What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating."
Americans are confused about food, Nestle says, and in large part she blames the powerful food industry's brilliant marketing, federal agencies interested in supporting that industry, and supermarkets that have made a science of cluttering the path to healthful items you need (such as milk, always in the back of the store) with unhealthful items you don't (such as snacks, candy and sodas in the central aisles and at the front.)
She wrote her book, she says, to help people eat better -- from a viewpoint of health but also of politics and ecology.
I needed to shop for my family of four, so I took Nestle along as advisor.
We hit a Vons, but it could have been Safeway, Ralphs, Gelson's or even Whole Foods because most stores adhere to the same basic layout and rules.
Cruising the aisles to the slow background music (designed to make you linger), Nestle points out that supermarkets carry about 40,000 products, and most of the center aisles are stocked with ones you don't need.
Her first tip: Stick to the periphery of the store. That is where you will find the necessities to eat well.
We begin on the outer edge, in the produce section. Nestle suggests that local produce be first choice -- because the longer it takes to move a food to where you buy it, the less "fresh" it is. Country of origin isn't always easy to ascertain, she says, because produce companies aren't required to state this. (She says pressure from the food industry led Congress to postpone until 2008 a law making such information mandatory.)
