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Slow Cooked: An Unexpected Life in Food Politics (California Studies in Food and Culture)
"A chronicle of hard work and a public health resource, Slow Cooked is also proof that it’s never too late." — New York Times
Marion Nestle reflects on her late-in-life career as a world-renowned food politics expert, public health advocate, and a founder of the field of food studies after facing decades of low expectations.
In this engrossing memoir, Marion Nestle reflects on how she achieved late-in-life success as a leading advocate for healthier and more sustainable diets. Slow Cooked recounts of how she built an unparalleled career at a time when few women worked in the sciences, and how she came to recognize and reveal the enormous influence of the food industry on our dietary choices.
By the time Nestle obtained her doctorate in molecular biology, she had been married since the age of nineteen, dropped out of college, worked as a lab technician, divorced, and become a stay-at-home mom with two children. That's when she got started. Slow Cooked charts her astonishing rise from bench scientist to the pinnacles of academia, as she overcame the barriers and biases facing women of her generation and found her life's purpose after age fifty. Slow Cooked tells her personal story—one that is deeply relevant to everyone who eats, and anyone who thinks it's too late to follow a passion.
Marion Nestle reflects on her late-in-life career as a world-renowned food politics expert, public health advocate, and a founder of the field of food studies after facing decades of low expectations.
In this engrossing memoir, Marion Nestle reflects on how she achieved late-in-life success as a leading advocate for healthier and more sustainable diets. Slow Cooked recounts of how she built an unparalleled career at a time when few women worked in the sciences, and how she came to recognize and reveal the enormous influence of the food industry on our dietary choices.
By the time Nestle obtained her doctorate in molecular biology, she had been married since the age of nineteen, dropped out of college, worked as a lab technician, divorced, and become a stay-at-home mom with two children. That's when she got started. Slow Cooked charts her astonishing rise from bench scientist to the pinnacles of academia, as she overcame the barriers and biases facing women of her generation and found her life's purpose after age fifty. Slow Cooked tells her personal story—one that is deeply relevant to everyone who eats, and anyone who thinks it's too late to follow a passion.
293 pages, Hardcover
First published October 4, 2022
20 people are currently reading
563 people want to read
About the author
Marion Nestle
43 books388 followersMarion Nestle, Ph.D, M.P.H., is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. She is also a professor of Sociology at NYU and a visiting professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University.
Nestle received her BA from UC Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa, after attending school there from 1954-1959. Her degrees include a Ph.D in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley.
Nestle received her BA from UC Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa, after attending school there from 1954-1959. Her degrees include a Ph.D in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
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August 29, 2023I want to be like her
January 10, 2024
I love food politics and I love memoirs by iconic women so this was a major slay from Marion Nestle my icon since my thesis. We should all be reading more memoirs by iconic women
January 20, 2023
Marion Nestle has become one of the most well-known voices in the food world, but her success came later in life. As a child born during the Great Depression she was told her future was to be a wife and mother. She was never encouraged to go to college or build a career. She did enroll in college, but quit when she got married and after having two children became a stay at home mother. But, she enjoyed college and ended up going back and working to pay for childcare. She ended up following two husbands who were also in academia around for their jobs before finally realizing her own dreams. But, it was extremely hard for Nestle to make it in academia as a woman. She had no mentors and almost no one encouraging her in the beginning. Eventually she ended up in her dream role at NYU, but there was still plenty of academia drama along the way. After she received tenure, she could really follow her passion of writing about food politics. Nestle was at the beginning of the rise in food interest and is now a well-know and well respected authority on food and nutrition. I think the hardest part about reading her memoir was how much she underestimated herself - but that was because ALL the voices around her were telling her that she didn't have anything to offer when she definitely did. I'm glad that she did find her way and is now working to shine a light on very important issues.
Somehow, I've never read any of her food related books despite also getting interested in food in the early 2000's. I think it may have been because she was in academia and was more known at that time in those circles. I'd definitely like to check out some of her other books about the food industry.
Some quotes I liked:
"Back then, I was not particularly adventurous or curious about food; I didn't understand that there was anything to be curious about. Here is an example I still can't get over. The bungalow in Los Angeles where my mother and I lived after Eva got married had a large avocado tree in the back, but we had no idea - and nobody we knew did either - that the rock-hard green things that fell to the ground could be edible, let alone scrumptious. We threw them out." (p. 21)
[On her time working as senior nutrition policy advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP)] "...I greatly underestimated what a hard time I would have in that office. Looking back on that period, I think of it as my two years in federal prison. In our first meeting, McGinnis explained the rules: no matter what the research indicated, the Surgeon General's Report would not recommend eating less meat as a way to reduce saturated fat, nor would it recommend eating less of specific foods that were sources of sugar or salt." (p. 89)
"All I needed for researching food industry actions was a computer, a library, and a telephone, and those were supplied by NYU. I did not need grants. I did not have to be beholden to funding agencies or private donors. I had tenure: I could write what I wanted to. I began to teach, speak, and write about the food industry's influence on dietary choices and on government policy." (p. 164)
"In 1992 I was appointed as a consumer representative to the FDA's first Food Advisory Committee. This gave me an inside look into how this agency came to approve genetically modified foods (GMOs), and I wrote about that. As members of the committee, we thought we were advising the FDA about how it should handle its thorny food issues. We were mistaken. Officials later told us they used the committee to get reactions to decisions they had already made. But what an education it was to see just how the FDA went about approving GMOs, as well as Proctor & Gamble's indigestible and potentially harmful fat substitute, Olestra - another topic I thought well worth writing about." (p. 165)
"Carolyn Heilbrun, the first woman to get tenure in Columbia University's English department, once wrote of women who had succeeded in academia: 'We should make use of our security, our seniority, to take risks, to make noise, to be courageous, to become unpopular.' I've tried my best to do just that." (p. 238)
Somehow, I've never read any of her food related books despite also getting interested in food in the early 2000's. I think it may have been because she was in academia and was more known at that time in those circles. I'd definitely like to check out some of her other books about the food industry.
Some quotes I liked:
"Back then, I was not particularly adventurous or curious about food; I didn't understand that there was anything to be curious about. Here is an example I still can't get over. The bungalow in Los Angeles where my mother and I lived after Eva got married had a large avocado tree in the back, but we had no idea - and nobody we knew did either - that the rock-hard green things that fell to the ground could be edible, let alone scrumptious. We threw them out." (p. 21)
[On her time working as senior nutrition policy advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP)] "...I greatly underestimated what a hard time I would have in that office. Looking back on that period, I think of it as my two years in federal prison. In our first meeting, McGinnis explained the rules: no matter what the research indicated, the Surgeon General's Report would not recommend eating less meat as a way to reduce saturated fat, nor would it recommend eating less of specific foods that were sources of sugar or salt." (p. 89)
"All I needed for researching food industry actions was a computer, a library, and a telephone, and those were supplied by NYU. I did not need grants. I did not have to be beholden to funding agencies or private donors. I had tenure: I could write what I wanted to. I began to teach, speak, and write about the food industry's influence on dietary choices and on government policy." (p. 164)
"In 1992 I was appointed as a consumer representative to the FDA's first Food Advisory Committee. This gave me an inside look into how this agency came to approve genetically modified foods (GMOs), and I wrote about that. As members of the committee, we thought we were advising the FDA about how it should handle its thorny food issues. We were mistaken. Officials later told us they used the committee to get reactions to decisions they had already made. But what an education it was to see just how the FDA went about approving GMOs, as well as Proctor & Gamble's indigestible and potentially harmful fat substitute, Olestra - another topic I thought well worth writing about." (p. 165)
"Carolyn Heilbrun, the first woman to get tenure in Columbia University's English department, once wrote of women who had succeeded in academia: 'We should make use of our security, our seniority, to take risks, to make noise, to be courageous, to become unpopular.' I've tried my best to do just that." (p. 238)
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February 3, 2024See, this is why I don’t like memoirs. How can I take issue with how someone else has lived and reflected on their life? Am I supposed to tell someone their life isn’t interesting or that their own conclusions they’ve come to about their own life events are wrong?
Prof. Marion Nestle is a pioneer in the field of nutrition and has written a number of well regarded books plus keeps up a very insightful and entertaining blog. In this memoir she looks back at what it was like starting a career in academia in the 60s (I actually feel like she held back when it came to the sexism she must’ve faced, both in her family and in her career) and then moving into nutrition later in life.
I enjoyed the first half of the book a lot. She had a difficult upbringing followed by a difficult early career and she looks back at how society still very much expected women to be housewives and mothers first and foremost when she was younger and how she persevered through what sounded like ghastly jobs at certain universities and as a bureaucrat. Nestle is open when it comes to her struggles during this time and admits to self esteem issues and questioning where her terrible first couple of jobs would take her.
The second half of the book is when she finds her calling in life and unfortunately this is where the memoir as a work of “entertainment” falls down. It’s basically a blow-by-blow account of the endless squabbles and issues working in academia and once that improves it becomes an endless exercise in name checking every random person who she hired to be a lecturer or who edited her book. I don’t want to say none of this was necessary to include, but I’ll put it this way: none of it gave me a deeper sense of who she is as a person or what any of it has really meant for her on a personal level. I was missing the introspection and bigger picture reflection that had been present in the earlier chapters.
How has the food environment changed since she first entered the field? What were her thoughts on seeing the obesity rate increase continuously through the decades she was working in public health nutrition? At one point she mentioned being criticised for having stood behind the low fat maxim from years past - where was the reflection on what had gone wrong instead of just shrugging it off? Does she really think that revelling in all the fancy trips the olive oil lobby took her on (yes there’s a lobby for that) is balanced out by saying, “but of course, at some point I finally realised this could be a conflict of interest and I stopped”?
So yeah, I won’t be rating this book because giving the memoir of a living person a bad rating just feels… rude. But I would’ve wished for less details on where her website IT guys were based and more reflection from a trailblazing female academic on what’s clearly an extraordinary career and an ever changing academic field that affects every single person standing in a supermarket aisle right now wondering what to buy for dinner.
Prof. Marion Nestle is a pioneer in the field of nutrition and has written a number of well regarded books plus keeps up a very insightful and entertaining blog. In this memoir she looks back at what it was like starting a career in academia in the 60s (I actually feel like she held back when it came to the sexism she must’ve faced, both in her family and in her career) and then moving into nutrition later in life.
I enjoyed the first half of the book a lot. She had a difficult upbringing followed by a difficult early career and she looks back at how society still very much expected women to be housewives and mothers first and foremost when she was younger and how she persevered through what sounded like ghastly jobs at certain universities and as a bureaucrat. Nestle is open when it comes to her struggles during this time and admits to self esteem issues and questioning where her terrible first couple of jobs would take her.
The second half of the book is when she finds her calling in life and unfortunately this is where the memoir as a work of “entertainment” falls down. It’s basically a blow-by-blow account of the endless squabbles and issues working in academia and once that improves it becomes an endless exercise in name checking every random person who she hired to be a lecturer or who edited her book. I don’t want to say none of this was necessary to include, but I’ll put it this way: none of it gave me a deeper sense of who she is as a person or what any of it has really meant for her on a personal level. I was missing the introspection and bigger picture reflection that had been present in the earlier chapters.
How has the food environment changed since she first entered the field? What were her thoughts on seeing the obesity rate increase continuously through the decades she was working in public health nutrition? At one point she mentioned being criticised for having stood behind the low fat maxim from years past - where was the reflection on what had gone wrong instead of just shrugging it off? Does she really think that revelling in all the fancy trips the olive oil lobby took her on (yes there’s a lobby for that) is balanced out by saying, “but of course, at some point I finally realised this could be a conflict of interest and I stopped”?
So yeah, I won’t be rating this book because giving the memoir of a living person a bad rating just feels… rude. But I would’ve wished for less details on where her website IT guys were based and more reflection from a trailblazing female academic on what’s clearly an extraordinary career and an ever changing academic field that affects every single person standing in a supermarket aisle right now wondering what to buy for dinner.
July 5, 2023
I really enjoyed this book. Marion Nestle had a very interesting life, and a very successful professional life, and it makes me want to strive to produce something in my life that also contributes to society.
February 7, 2023
This author is a trailblazer. Later in life, she returned to academia after dropping out of college at 19 to marry and have two children. She got her doctorate in molecular biology when women were not getting science degrees. She has worked to transform our food system and study nutrition's role in public health. She went on to create the first-ever food studies program. Her principles are easy to follow and can be outlined in seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That leaves plenty of room for deliciousness.
In addition to learning about nutrition and the author's revelations, I found all the politics at the different medical schools and PhD programs horrifying yet fascinating. For all the fifty people who think their life is set in stone, this author is a living example of what it means to find your passion and purpose later in life.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...
In addition to learning about nutrition and the author's revelations, I found all the politics at the different medical schools and PhD programs horrifying yet fascinating. For all the fifty people who think their life is set in stone, this author is a living example of what it means to find your passion and purpose later in life.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...
January 7, 2024
Marion Nestle is one of the most well-known voices in Food Studies. She is a renowned Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, at NYU and an award-winning author of several books on food safety, food politics, and nutrition.
However, as a poor Depression-era baby she grew up without aspiration; her family instructed nothing more than marry and have children, as early as possible. She dropped out of a college, started a family and became a stay-at-home mom to two children. Decades later, divorced, she returned to earn a doctorate in molecular biology (against a forefront of barriers and biases facing women of science in the 1960s).
This is a trailblazer story of finding life's purpose after age fifty and a reminder that it's never too late to follow a passion.
However, as a poor Depression-era baby she grew up without aspiration; her family instructed nothing more than marry and have children, as early as possible. She dropped out of a college, started a family and became a stay-at-home mom to two children. Decades later, divorced, she returned to earn a doctorate in molecular biology (against a forefront of barriers and biases facing women of science in the 1960s).
This is a trailblazer story of finding life's purpose after age fifty and a reminder that it's never too late to follow a passion.
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February 17, 2024When I imagine Marion Nestle, she’s firing flaming arrows of evidence-based research into a crowd of White, old, male academics. Obviously Marion’s holding her own.
This memoir is nothing short of inspirational! Reading about Marion’s late start in her career to the challenges and opposition she faced throughout her publishing and academic journey just made me want to champion her even more. I loved how she owned her successes and wasn’t afraid to be proud of achievements. She was incredibly humble in regaling her accomplishments, while also being honest about the trials, frustrations, and mistakes that she’s experienced. What I would give to listen to one of her lectures or talks in person!
This memoir is nothing short of inspirational! Reading about Marion’s late start in her career to the challenges and opposition she faced throughout her publishing and academic journey just made me want to champion her even more. I loved how she owned her successes and wasn’t afraid to be proud of achievements. She was incredibly humble in regaling her accomplishments, while also being honest about the trials, frustrations, and mistakes that she’s experienced. What I would give to listen to one of her lectures or talks in person!
June 2, 2023
Food memoirs have become one of my most loved genres over the last couple of year, and this is one of the best. Marion Nestle's memoir of how a suburban housewife got into the world of Food Politics is an absolutely brilliant read. It's a story that touches many fault points in our society, including how many talented women just get pushed into an unwanted life of domesticity thanks to societal norms and how much human potential we're losing that way. Marion Nestle's impact on the food industry is quite impressive, and to think she entered the scene quite late, and that too rather accidentally! A great read.
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January 30, 2024Marion Nestle is the woman who gets it done👏
It's been a while since I've been this inspired by a memoir (reconsidering that MPH LOL). Nestle has such a zest for nutrition and public health and I loved hearing about her career journey- especially with all the barriers she overcame as a woman in academia. I appreciated her honesty about her mistakes, and also how hard she celebrates her wins (as she SHOULD). Honestly, if you're considering reading Lessons in Chemistry just read this one instead.
It's been a while since I've been this inspired by a memoir (reconsidering that MPH LOL). Nestle has such a zest for nutrition and public health and I loved hearing about her career journey- especially with all the barriers she overcame as a woman in academia. I appreciated her honesty about her mistakes, and also how hard she celebrates her wins (as she SHOULD). Honestly, if you're considering reading Lessons in Chemistry just read this one instead.
June 28, 2024
I applaud everyone who writes a memoir or an autobiography, especially women who had to fight their way to be noticed. Marion Nestle is obviously one of those. However, this book is a narration of her monthly planners, not a heart felt life of passion. Except for the earliest chapters on her upbringing, she shows little passion about anything in her life, not her family or her career. She includes almost no anecdotes that make a story interesting and enjoyable. Did she not value the people around her? She name drops but doesn't talk about them. She was a professor for years, but tells no stories about her students? How can that be? She is emotionless in her writing. She obviously was driven to succeed but she never even expresses much passion about her career. She discusses some of the difficulties in her career, but only in a way to explain the subsequent changes in her career. How can her career have been as meaningful as the press around this book has expressed if she had no passion for it? Bottom line, this is a boring book about an interesting woman. I wish a qualified author had written a biography about her as they would have known how to interest the reader and would have explored her more fully. I fear her ego drove her to write this book and she was never really willing to dig deeply into her motivations and influences.
December 5, 2022
As a woman working in the world I found aspects of this book so COMFORTING even if they were for reasons that I hate - the challenges of equal pay, pointless hierarchy, horrible bosses. I’m also a person with three placements in Virgo so Nestle walking through how she does what she does was meant for me. Plus the work she does is so interesting and if people don’t like intersectional work they can take a hike!
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January 29, 2023I really enjoyed this memoir! I loved getting to read about how Marion’s career in food politics (and the birth of food studies as a field) came together, especially in the earlier years where the social landscape for womens’ participation in the workforce was so different. What an incredibly interesting & inspiring life she’s led.
I also found it comforting to read about why she loves studying and thinking about food so much, because her reasons sound so similar to my own.
I also found it comforting to read about why she loves studying and thinking about food so much, because her reasons sound so similar to my own.
January 14, 2024
Excellent memoir! I had a quibble toward the end when she seemed to be simply listing places and people, not supplying the fascinating details that made the rest of the book a real joy to enjoy. But that's immaterial--she's my new hero. And she didn't even really get started until she was in her sixties. I mean, get started publishing books. She was working long before then, working a lot. And man, it was really hard for women to have a career in science back then. Good for her!
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November 22, 2025Marion Nestle's memoir is candid, inspiring, and comprehensive. For writers trying to make the world a better place, it is also a very practical guide to how to approach her astonishing level of productivity and accomplishment, all while enjoying the process, the people she meets along the way, and the many students she has mentored. Highly recommended for anyone interested in food systems, nutrition, and food politics!
April 1, 2023
Is this the most beautifully written book? No. Is this a book about a well lived, interesting, and unexpected life? Yes!
Nestle is a force and a vanguard worth reading about, and I've admired, for many years now, her tenacity and courage to research, say, and write about the elephant in the room, the politics of food.
Nestle is a force and a vanguard worth reading about, and I've admired, for many years now, her tenacity and courage to research, say, and write about the elephant in the room, the politics of food.
January 10, 2023
Very interesting saga - but a bit dry.
March 9, 2023
An inspiring career!
December 16, 2024
She is inspiring!!! I’m so glad that I got to hear more about her life.
January 29, 2023
I love everything Dr. Nestle writes but this book was especially enjoyable.
July 30, 2023
An interesting career, an easy read, and a fascinating woman.
May 14, 2023
Delightful read! A memoir. After reading or starting but still reading other books by Marion Nestle reading "Slow Cooked" has been a joy and a fun read. What a fascinating life the author has had. Of the public figures and experts in the fields that interest me if I were able to meet them in real life - I would want to meet Marion. She's knowledgeable, savvy, detailed and impactful.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews