Fast Food and Junk Food: An Encyclopedia of What We Love to Eat [2 volumes]

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Description

This fascinating and revealing work examines the incredible power of junk food and fast foodhow nostalgic we are about them, the influence of the companies that manufacture or sell them, and their alarming effect on our country's state of health. In the last half century, junk food and fast food have come to play an extremely important role in American economic, historical, cultural, and social life. Today, they have a major influence on what Americans eatand how healthy we are (or aren't). Fast Food and Junk Food: An Encyclopedia of What We Love to Eat tells the intriguing, fun, and incredible stories behind the successes of these commercial food products and documents the numerous health-related, environmental, cultural, and politico-economic issues associated with them. With more than 700 alphabetically arranged entries, this two-volume encyclopedia contains enough listings to allow readers to research a wide range of fascinating topics. The author treats the massive amount of subject material within this reference title in a fair and balanced manner. A secondary focus of this encyclopedia is to chart the spread of some American fast food chains and commercially produced junk foods internationally.

Reviews

Compared to the 1st edition, this set provides 270 new entries (many of which focus on other countries), and provides updated and expanded entries of those previously published. For public and academic libraries needing this type of information, this is a good source of information. * ARBA *
Readers will . . . benefit from a helpful glossary of terms and a resource guide including books, films, and websites. . . . Summing up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. * Choice *
Overall, Fast food and Junk food: An Encyclopedia of What We Love to Eat is a useful and interesting text covering a wide range of subjects and is appropriate for many academic and public libraries. * Reference Reviews *

Author Bio

Andrew F. Smith teaches food studies and professional food writing at the New School University, New York, NY.