Columnist and food writer Wilson takes readers to the beginning of the 19th century to
document the history of food adulteration--at heart "two very simple principles: poisoning
and cheating." concentrating on Britain and the U.S. (other countries, especially France,
navigated food supply industrialization with wiser government policy), Wilson finds the
first food crusader in Frederick Accum, a German immigrant who used chemistry to expose the
dishonesty of London food purveyors in his treatise on adulterations of food and culinary
poisons; she finds the first ineffective government response in Parliament's commitment to
laissez faire economic policies over citizen safety. In the U.S., New York's 1850s "swill
milk" epidemic and Chicago's meat packing industry would eventually lead to the 1906 Pure
Food and Drug act--which probably wouldn't have passed without the popularity of Upton
Sinclair's meat packing expose The Jungle, and couldn't stop the most nefarious and prevalent
of food frauds, the development of fake foods: margarine, baby formula and thousands more.
Wilson follows the economic, cultural and political threads skillfully, reporting on
developments as recent as the China baby formula scandal. Prescribing more awareness and
regulation, Wilson contends that consumers and governments must recognize the continuous
pressure on companies to make money by substituting nutritious, genuine ingredients with
adulterants. Timely, witty and purposeful, this thorough history should open a lot of eyes,
and close some mouths.

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