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The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children |  | Author: Carol Simontacchi
Publisher: Tarcher
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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as of 11/21/2009 04:34 CST details
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Seller: cuddling-currys
Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 210886
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.9 x 1
ISBN: 1585426261
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.80471
EAN: 9781585426263
ASIN: 1585426261
Publication Date: December 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
We already worry that our food makes us fat, dull, disease-prone, and sleepy. Now we have to worry that it also makes us crazy. According to certified clinical nutritionist Carol Simontacchi, the food industries that give us packaged, processed, artificially flavored, chemical-ridden, artificially colored, nutrient-stripped pseudo foods such as sodas, processed soups, sugared cereals, and fiberless bread "wantonly destroy our bodies and our brains, all in the name of profit." We Americans (adults and children) eat 200 pounds of sugar and artificial sweeteners each year. Our children's test scores and grades drop. We become violent, illogical, moody, depressed, drug-addicted, and crazy. The reason, according to the author, who is pursuing a doctorate in brain nutrition, is that we're starving our brains with lack of nutrition. This isn't a process that begins when teenagers start snacking on sodas, chips, and ice cream. Rather, this nutrition deprivation starts in the womb: mom doesn't get the right nutrition (essential fatty acids, high-quality protein, unrefined carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water), so baby is born already brain-nutrient deficient, says the author. Infant formulas, processed baby food, and sugared cereals exacerbate the problem through the stages of childhood, with kids not getting the nutrition their growing brains need. Simontacchi also skewers prepared foods, additives, over-processed grains, school vending machines, and fast-food chains. This book isn't only about children. Starbucks and its ilk get a "Crazy Maker Award" for "encouraging us to self-medicate with stimulating beverages that mask the symptoms of nervous system and adrenal exhaustion." We adults are genuinely fatigued, but instead of getting the sleep and rest we need, we succumb to the "marketing hype of sophisticated companies that convinces us that self-medicating with an addictive substance is the answer to our energy crisis." You may not accept all Simontacchi's views, but once you've read this book, you won't reach for a café latte or feed your kids sugar-frosted cereal with the same complacency. --Joan Price
Product Description
An unprecedented and impeccably reported look at how American food manufacturers and their "products" may be endangering our minds.
With obesity becoming one of the fastest-growing worldwide epidemics, and manufactured food fueling that trend, The Crazy Makers is timelier than ever. This updated edition includes a new chapter on autism, as well as revised material that illustrates just how much the industry has changed in a few short years.
Based on extensive research, epidemiological evidence, and a formal study of schoolchildren's eating habits, The Crazy Makers identifies how the latest food products may be literally driving us crazy. Carol Simontacchi offers the reader nutritional primers and recipes to help counteract the problems facing us and our children every time we sit down to eat.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 33
 This book gives the real truth about what the food industry is doing to our nation! September 3, 2009
Jasmin Song (New York, NY USA)
If everyone knew the contents of this book, the world would be an entirely different place. People would actually be healthy, less dependent on pharmaceutical drugs, and there would be less incidence of mental illness.
Great eye opener August 11, 2008
J. Taylor
Great book! It gives a lot of information about what foods are making us sick and what foods to eat to be healthy.
Interesting...but Ultimately Depressing June 29, 2008
Amy Graham (Scottsdale, AZ)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
You know, this book isn't at all what I was expecting...I rather got the idea in my head that this was another book like Fast Food Nation, and to some extent it was. This book was really about feeding yourself (as a potential parent) and your children the best foods and discussing the damage done by improper eating on unborn children and then on what we feed our infants and children as they grow up. This book succeeded where none has before in making me feel like the worse parent ever for not breastfeeding any of my children and for feeding them both formula and baby foods (I did make some of my own of those, but I also liberally used jars of Gerber)...I also have fed my kids lunchables, Kraft Mac & Cheese, and all the other myriad of foods that this book says are liable to impair my children's brain development. According to Simontacchi, I have, without even really trying, set my kids up for emotional problems as kids and teens and for other larger problems as they grow into adulthood...and none of them can be corrected at this point. This book was a real eye opener in that regard, I see where it is coming from, but at the same time, this book puts a foul taste in my mouth because it smacks of that same "woman as a potential womb" at all times until she is no longer able to conceive children, and that combined with the four or five chapter long constant trouncing of my choices for food for my children...I came out of the feeling like the scum of the earth as a parent.
There was a lot of good info in the book, so I am glad that I read it and I would recommend it, especially to those women (and men) who are actively trying to have children. The advice, I feel, is solid...I just don't enjoy feeling like I've done nothing but mess up royally and there is very little I can do to "fix it." It was a little depressing, especially given that some of the NEVER eat foods are foods my mom grew up feeding me. There were no lunchables when I was a kid, but my mom loathed cooking and I grew up on boxed food like Hamburger Helper, Mac & Cheese, and any other box type meal that needed minimal things added to make a meal. I can see some of my own "problems" in the book and see that diet as a child, teen and early adult contributed to it. At this point, all I can do is take the message to heart and work to make the rest of my kids childhood more nutritional.
Taken with a grain of salt, it's a must read! June 16, 2008
C. Caviness (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had heard two different radio interviews with the author and have kept an eye open for this book ever since. I'm surprised a 2nd Edition has not been released. Some of the opinions may seem radical but with so many physical and mental health problems that have no popular answers, it's good to look at some of the alternative views, and this book has them! From an increase rise in fatal food allegies like peanuts, latex, etc. to the rise in violence and poor decision making, all changes in the world must be looked at and why not start with our diet?
I would like to know what the auther has learned since the book's publication and how has the scientific community reacted to this book but other than that, I give this four stars as a must read.
 Questionable credibility, disappointing book June 10, 2008
Erin Lafreniere (Michigan, USA)
20 out of 26 found this review helpful
The premise of this book is that the standard Western diet, full of processed food and lacking in nutrition, has a negative effect on mental health. I found it an interesting hypothesis and was looking forward to learning about the evidence that would support it. Unfortunately, I found the book so terrible that I gave up reading it after the introduction and the first chapter.
The book was not as well-referenced as I would have liked. There were many statistics (mostly quite negative, to prove the point that Americans are screwed up and their lives suck), but not all were clearly referenced. Some were misleading, such as a statistic from 1981 that was discussed as if it represented the current situation, although the book was copyright 2000. Other statistics seemed like they could be misleading also; I would have to check the original sources before trusting them.
There were a few religious references, nothing that I found objectionable, but I am cautious when people start talking about religion because some religious people are not very strong in their science.
The author mentioned that in her clients' food diaries, "It was not uncommon to see a seven-day food diary containing twenty-one meals with almost no vegetables, no fruit, no protein, and no water." The "no protein" comment puzzles me, as it's my understanding that most Americans get way more protein than they need.
While flipping to look at the endnotes, I saw a "healthy" recipe in the back for cream puffs that included butter, eggs, and general-purpose flour. Those don't register as particularly healthy ingredients to me.
In the endnotes, I saw a reference to a telephone conversation with Sally Fallon, the president and treasurer of the Weston A. Price Foundation. This organization discourages processed foods and believes that animal fat is necessary for good health. I agree with them in giving the thumbs-down to processed foods, but the evidence I've seen has convinced me that animal-based foods are not only unnecessary but harmful to human health. Thus, seeing a reference to Sally Fallon makes me a little suspicious about the author's conclusions.
The "About the Author" information said that Carol Simontacchi was "currently pursing her Ph.D. in Brain Nutrition from the Union Institute." I looked up the Union Institute (I'd never heard of it before). Currently, Interdisciplinary Studies is the only Ph.D. they offer, with a concentration in Ethical and Creative Leadership, Public Policy and Social Issues, or Humanities and Society. None of those are even in science, no less something as specialized as Brain Nutrition. A quick internet search turned up a bio of Carol Simontacchi related to her appearance as a guest on a radio show on December 29, 2007. It says she earned a Master of Science from Columbia Pacific University (another school I've never heard of) and doesn't mention anything about a Ph.D.
There might well be some good information in this book, but I had so many concerns about the credibility of the author and the evidence presented that I was not comfortable accepting the information. I decided it wasn't worth my time to read the rest of the book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 33
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