Product Description

Certain to be one of the year's most controversial books, here is an unprecedented look at how American food manufacturers and their "products" may be endangering our children by sabotaging their brains.

In the tradition of Silent Spring, The Crazy Makers is an indictment of American food processors and what they are serving the nation. Are they distributing food, or manufacturing products that redefine what we think food to be? How far afield of true food has the search for profit and the need to meet consumer trends led food manufacturers?

Nutritionist Carol Simontacchi shows how the pseudo-foods being promoted today--from infant formulas to health-conscious prepackaged meals--are, in fact, physically eroding our brains. While it has been proven that food choices contribute to degenerative diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, Simontacchi maintains that our mental condition is also at risk. Examining the relationship of diet to changing levels of chemicals in the brain, Simontacchi finds that:

consumer baby-formulas and baby foods can be harmful to an infant's brain development;
ingredients and residues such as MSG and neurotoxins are present in our children's food, hidden by misleading labels;
stripping essential minerals from the foods being served to teenagers can be linked to anorexia nervosa, bulimia, poor cognition and behavior; and
schools that strike deals with fast-food companies are among the worst saboteurs of a child's healthy diet and mind.

Based on new research, information retrieved via the Freedom of Information Act, and a formal study conducted by Simontacchi of schoolchildren's eating habits, The Crazy Makers identifies how the new "foods" may be driving us crazy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49090 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Amazon.com
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

From Publishers Weekly
Why have depression rates soared in the post-WWII era? Why does one in four adults have a mental health crisis in any given year? According to Simontacchi, a clinical nutritionist (Your Fat Is Not Your Fault), the cause is a diet that consists of processed food deficient in crucial nutrients. Turning her attention first to the eating patterns of pregnant women, Simontacchi finds a connection between prenatal nutritional deficiencies (in fatty acids and B complex vitamins, among others) and "hidden" defects, which show up not at birth but later, as poor memory and the inability to concentrate. She also reports on a small study she conducted with teenagers: one group was given a nutritious breakfast drink and the other group was not. The youths who received the drink, she discovered, felt better in six areas of emotion, such as anxiety, depression and vigor. She also finds links between the poor eating habits of teenagers and fatigue, depression and self-destructive behavior. Throughout, Simontacchi documents her arguments with reference to mainstream journal articles and nutritional studies. But her tone is sometimes overwrought: "We are being systematically starved," she writes, eating not real food but "toxic food artifacts" made by food manufacturers. Her comments about the superiority of breast milk over formula may plunge into guilty despair anyone who didn't breast-feed her children for at least a year. But in a more positive vein, she offers pro-active strategies for improved nutritionAincluding pages of sensible suggested recipes for improving not only physical but mental health as well. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Simontacchi, a certified clinical nutritionist and the author of several books on nutrition, claims that processed food products are affecting healthy brain development during all stages of life, from infancy to adulthood. Processed foods lack essential nutrients and contain coloring agents, artificial flavors, toxins, and other substances that may be linked to anorexia, bulimia, poor cognition, mental illness, depression, headaches, fatigue, and other ailments. Simontacchi challenges many contemporary views about the foods we eat and takes the food industry to task for destroying our bodies and our brains by manufacturing "food artifacts." Her blanket condemnation of processed foods and her failure to discuss the cultural, genetic, and psychological causes of these illnesses may turn off many readers, who will find her solutions questionable. Nevertheless, she backs up her assertions with references to research showing the impact of poor nutrition on human health and brain development. She recommends unprocessed organic foods, plenty of fruits and vegetables, and the appropriate combinations of fats, vitamins, minerals, proteins, and carbohydrates to maintain healthy brains. A multistep approach to better nutrition and menus to help achieve it are also included. Recommended for nutrition and alternative medicine collections.DIrwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

eating ourselves crazy
Simontacchi spells out in detail what is wrong with the modern American diet and what it is doing to the health of our brains. If only half of what she says is true, this country is headed for a mental health train wreck of massive proportions. Though she occasionally makes a statement that is unsupported by evidence and her views on soy are somewhat contradictory, I'm still giving this book five stars, because what she has to say is vitally important. Essential reading.

Changed the way I look at food!
This author very clearly and concisely lays down the argument for why so many people and children are developing diseases and ailments at a record rate. It all can be traced back to what we put in our mouth. How many of us actually sit and read every label of what we eat? How many of us know what all those additives and "natural flavorings" are made of? Ms. Simontacchi made me think twice about what I eat, what I feed my child and the way I approach food shopping in general. This book changed my life, I will never feed any of my future children formula or baby food!

Drive thru windows won't save you now!
After reading this book, I feel ever so sorry for the people I see everywhere with a soda can in their hands, or firmly affixed in line at the local Fast Food Poison outlet, or even the ones with carts loaded down at the local Sam's Club.

It's no WONDER the Generations X, Y, Z, and thereafter are requiring us to dumb down America! They couldn't understand a blessed thing otherwise. Some STILL can't!

I'll close before I give way to a rant about over-consumption in general, and nutrition specifically. I wish to thank the author for putting it all out in black and white. I just hope the ones who need to see it most are able to read and comprehend it (while in a soda haze hopped up on a bucket of KFC).