Review: ‘Eat Drink Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics’

“Eat Drink Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics”
By Marion Nestle

The front cover of Marion Nestle’s “Eat Drink Vote” features a cartoon sporting the inscription “New Congressional Lunch Food Pyramid,” just above a standing-up slice of pizza. It’s hard to know whether to chuckle or groan (or both in succession) at the often inane reality of the politics of food these days.

And that’s why cartoons work so well for this topic: there is no pithier way to render the complicated issues around food into a pointed, simple commentary.

Nestle, who teaches food studies at New York University, worked with The Cartoonist Group’s Sara Thaves to edit the selection down from about a pool of 1,000 cartoons. Though Nestle expresses her own views in the text, she lets the cartoons (and cartoonists) speak for themselves.

Agriculture, hunger, obesity, public health, genetically modified foods, cloned animals, labeling—the field is wide and rife with issues and point of views.

“Eat Drink Vote,” like a good cartoon, should be a conversation-starter.

Eat Drink Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics
By Marion Nestle
Rodale
$18.99