What do you think?
Rate this book
What to Eat: Food that’s good for your health, pocket and plate
Product Description Covering all the pressing food dilemmas of our times, What to Eat, by award-winning food writer Joanna Blythman, helps you make sensible, thoughtful and practical choices about what to eat each day, irrespective of your income. Food should be one of life's greatest pleasures yet, increasingly, choosing it is becoming a chore. Bombarded by questions such as 'Is red meat bad for you?' and 'Is local always best?' it's difficult to know what to eat. At the same time, even the basics are becoming more and more expensive, making it essential that we choose the best foods for ourselves and the planet and make them go as far as possible. Packed with brilliant ideas for choosing lovely, wholesome meat, fish and veg and quick, easy suggestions for cooking them well, without compromising your principles or emptying your purse, this is the modern manual for eating well in the twenty-first century. About the Author Joanna Blythman is Britain's leading investigative food...
400 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2012
19 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
About the author
Joanna Blythman
17 books21 followersJoanna Blythman is a leading Scottish investigative food journalist and writer. She has won five Glenfiddich Awards for her writing, and, in 2004, won the prestigious Derek Cooper Award, one of BBC Radio 4’s Food and Farming Awards. She contributes regularly to Observer Food Monthly, among other newspapers and magazines, and frequently broadcasts on food issues.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 14, 2012
Honestly one of the best books on food I've read (and I've read quite a few). Blythman speaks so much sense, a real balance of charm and practicality. I feel a much better equipped shopper and eater.
I'd put it up there next to Michael Pollen's In Defence of Food.
I'd put it up there next to Michael Pollen's In Defence of Food.
Want to read
June 27, 2017People read for different reasons, and I picked this book up with the intention to effect some dietary improvements into my life and have been reading it.
One doesn't necessarily anticipate to enjoy books that they might have started for this purpose alone, and even though it's not the most compelling thing I've read in a while, I must admit it's both a lively and informative read.
One doesn't necessarily anticipate to enjoy books that they might have started for this purpose alone, and even though it's not the most compelling thing I've read in a while, I must admit it's both a lively and informative read.
August 15, 2025
This book is certainly a bit outdated by now, mentioning regulations coming into effect soon, which was over 10 years ago. As nutrition is a fairly quickly evolving science, parts of it may now be not so accurate anymore, with emerging evidence from 15 years back can easily be counter-evidenced. However, the core ideas stand to eat less processed and more real foods.
July 8, 2017
Audiobook for me, although I have the paperback version too, and I'm glad I got that too!
This is not a book that could be easily read in one go, as it is more like one you want to check out a specific food. As an Italian who was brought up in a household where everything was cooked from scratch, it is a no brainer to me that the less processed food we eat, the better it is for everyone. Still, after living for many years abroad, it is easy to lapse at times, and purchase processed rubbish, just because it is readily available in the supermarkets, or because I'm travelling and need to rely on the display in the shops. When I was younger and living in Italy, if I wasn't at home and was hungry, I could always walk into a shop that sold a bit of everything: food, packed pasta, soap, laundry powder, bread, cheeses, and cold cured meats. The lady or man behind the counter would prepare bread rolls filled with your choice of cured meat/salami/ham or cheese, or both, wrap it in a piece of oiled paper and you were set. No water in bottles to be bought, but the city was full of small fountains where one could drink from.
While that particular shop near my home is no longer there, you can still order a roll to take with you in many italian Delicatessen shops. The difference between them and, let's say, a Subway, is that they use real bread and proper cheeses/meats.
Anyway, the book gives not just the time of the year when one should buy a certain produce (which, obviously, will be the time the item is in season) but also their environmental qualities, and gives ideas to those who are not familiar with them on how to cook or prepare them.
Thumbs up for me!
This is not a book that could be easily read in one go, as it is more like one you want to check out a specific food. As an Italian who was brought up in a household where everything was cooked from scratch, it is a no brainer to me that the less processed food we eat, the better it is for everyone. Still, after living for many years abroad, it is easy to lapse at times, and purchase processed rubbish, just because it is readily available in the supermarkets, or because I'm travelling and need to rely on the display in the shops. When I was younger and living in Italy, if I wasn't at home and was hungry, I could always walk into a shop that sold a bit of everything: food, packed pasta, soap, laundry powder, bread, cheeses, and cold cured meats. The lady or man behind the counter would prepare bread rolls filled with your choice of cured meat/salami/ham or cheese, or both, wrap it in a piece of oiled paper and you were set. No water in bottles to be bought, but the city was full of small fountains where one could drink from.
While that particular shop near my home is no longer there, you can still order a roll to take with you in many italian Delicatessen shops. The difference between them and, let's say, a Subway, is that they use real bread and proper cheeses/meats.
Anyway, the book gives not just the time of the year when one should buy a certain produce (which, obviously, will be the time the item is in season) but also their environmental qualities, and gives ideas to those who are not familiar with them on how to cook or prepare them.
Thumbs up for me!
April 22, 2021
Brilliant - this will become a bible in our house
So informative and interesting. Gives details of how foods are produced and which ones to embrace or avoid. I now have a list of foods which I know I can continue to eat if I switch to organic, a list to avoid and a list to carry on with.
So informative and interesting. Gives details of how foods are produced and which ones to embrace or avoid. I now have a list of foods which I know I can continue to eat if I switch to organic, a list to avoid and a list to carry on with.
October 15, 2015
Lots of useful information in an easily read format to help you make better choices when you buy food. I got this from the library but I'm going to buy my own copy to keep as a reference guide.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews