The author here offers a marvelous smorgasbord of stories taken from the history of nutrition, providing an engaging account of the struggle to find the ingredients of a healthy diet, and the fads and quackery that have waylaid the unwary. The book teems with colorful personalities, a veritable who's who of medical history, from Hippocrates to Pasteur, plus such intriguing figures such as Count Rumford, who argued that since plants got their food...