The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children

by Carol N. Simontacchi

An unprecedented and impeccably reported look at how American food manufacturers and their "products" may be endangering our minds. With obesity becoming one of the fastest-growing worldwide epidemics, and manufactured food fueling that trend, "The Crazy Makers" is timelier than ever. This updated edition includes a new chapter on autism, as well as revised material that illustrates just how much the industry has changed in a few short years. Based on extensive research, epidemiological evidence, and a formal study of schoolchildren's eating habits, "The Crazy Makers" identifies how the latest food products may be literally driving us crazy. Carol Simontacchi offers the reader nutritional primers and recipes to help counteract the problems facing us and our children every time we sit down to eat.

Genres: Health, Food

352 pages, ebook

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Principle Based Learning]

(recommended by Karin)
This is an unfortunate title for a really good book. It sounds inflammatory and whiny, but it’s full of good science on the detriments of processed foods and what they do. The chapters are organized by age, starting with infants and ending with adults, followed by one on autism. There are some recipes at the end.

Click here for the full article on: Health and Nutrition

[Meagan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ll be real, I couldn’t finish this book. Once she disparaged baby formula because it’s “unnatural” I lost all hope.
This is an alarmist text that regularly confuses correlation with causation. She cherry picks data to support her views, falling prey to the “naturalistic” fallacy.
While the basic premise has some truth (that food can affect our energy, mood, etc and that much of the Western diet is full of low nutrient dense food) she ignores all other possible causes for society’s woes (socioeconomic status, community engagement and isolation, financial and time resources, social media, exercise and sedentary lifestyle).

Edit: after a quick skim of the other chapters, I forgot to add that she also has a chapter dedicated to the “autism epidemic” and offers uncited advice on how to “treat” it including taking aloe vera orally, which is really just a laxative….how did this book even get published?

[Laura The Book Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary- Stop eating fast food, stop drinking coke, and don't eat prepackaged foods like tv dinner and lunchables. Opinion- It made me never want to eat the bad stuff and to feed my children's brains correctly.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Content seemed interesting until I got further into the book, then it seemed excessively biased. The research didn't connect the dots. By the end, I was really wondering if any fact checking occurred by the publisher.

[Heather Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a mother of an ADHD Child I am always looking and wondering if we can remove the medication and go natural food remedies or natural medications. This book was interesting. I do not feel the information given was adequate for child food intake. I feel that section could have been greater. The 'adult' section only talks about 20 something year olds, nothing for an older generation to follow.

I was not in agreement with the author stating teenagers need to take two dozen health vitamin supplements. What teenager would take all those supplements? The authors only I believe!

The only thing I am in agreement is with trying a few vitamins to see if that will help calm my hyper active child down.

[Rebecha · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading The China Study, this book just didn't measure up. I think the chapter about breast feeding would be very worthwhile for a momma-to-be, and the introductory chapters are very good. However, as I delved deeper into the book, I felt that the author was making statements that were based more on loosely build theories and suppositions as opposed to scientifically rendered fact or qualitative data. It is a very easy read ... finished it in two days.

[I Contain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes some excellent points about the way fast food affects our brains. That being said, I feel that the author comes off a little hoity toity in many areas, especially when talking about children's nutrition. She writes from the seat of upper class privilege without thinking about the fact that some people may lack the money to "buy organic" and the time to "bake cookies at home with reduced sugar" with their children. Overall the recommendations are solid.

[Marshall Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Junk science at its best.