APPETITE FOR CHANGE: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry and What Happened When It Did, 1966-1988

by Warren J. Belasco ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 5, 1989

Now that it's history, Belasco (American Studies/Univ. of Maryland at Baltimore) looks back on the countercuisine that took off in the Sixties and, in a separate section, on the dismissive/defensive response of the food industry with its academic, government, and journalist allies. But Belasco brings no new insight or analysis to this overly familiar material: His initial survey of the natural/organic/hippie movement--a catalog of airy generalizations supported by a numbing plethora of quotes from ephemera of the times (remember alicia bay laurel? how about elaine sundancer?)--tends mainly to belabor the trivial. His review of the establishment backlash is more specific but similarly lacking in rigor; and a third section, bringing us up to date with the main-streaming of nutrition claims in marketing, acknowledges the contradictions, segmentation, and convolutions of the Eighties without making much more sense of it than would one of the Time magazine features he scorns. Disappointing, but probably worth having for its convenient amalgamation.

Pub Date: Jan. 5, 1989

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1989

Categories: NONFICTION