"Ok, buckle up: it's going to be a bumpy ride."
~from Ingredients by George Zaidan
I must confess, I did not do well in high school chemistry. The class met at 2 pm in the afternoon; the classroom was too warm, the subject too dry, and I was not the only student who dozed off. Mr. Heald would kick the metal trash can to wake us up.
Zaidan is a 'science communicator' who understands people like me and knows how to make chemistry understandable. He draws pictures and diagrams and talks us through. He is our personal decoder, translating the language of scientific research into English "as accurately and entertainingly as possible."
In the Preface, Zaidan admits that his readings surprised him.
Facts are shifty things. Because science, we learn, is not exact. There are so many ways to set up and twist results, so many variables, that we can't trust all the trial results that we read about.
You know the ones I am talking about. Wait five minutes and you will hear a study from Podunk U that reverses yesterday's study from Wossamotta U.
Caffeine is good for you, caffeine is bad for you. Eggs are good sources of nutrition, eggs are bad for your heart. Butter is bad for you, butter is better than margarine, olive oil is better than anything and its used in the Mediterranean Diet which will extend your life.
Life's big questions are the center of Zaidan's quest for knowledge:
- How much life does every additional Cheeto suck from your body?
- Are e-cigarettes really a healthier choice?
- Is coffee the elixir of life of blood of the devil?
- Does chlorine create that public pool smell?
- Does sunscreen absorb photons like Whitney Houston's bodyguard absorbs bullets in The Bodyguard?
- Should we pay attention to newspaper headlines about food and health
- How can I add three years to my life expectancy
- Does prayer reduce the risk of death?
His conclusions are not as conclusive as we would like. The biggies are still there: Don't smoke. Be active. Eat reasonably well.
I appreciated how Zaidan broke down the way tests and studies are carried out. It was the most interesting aspect of the book for me.
I was given a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What we Put in Us and on Us
George Zaidan
Dutton
Publication Date Apr 14, 2020
Hardcover $27.00
ISBN 9781524744274
Listen to an excerpt from the book here
About the author:George Zaidan is a science communicator, television and web host, and producer. He created National Geographic’s webseries Ingredients, and he cowrote and directed MIT’s webseries Science Out Loud. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, The Boston Globe, National Geographic Magazine, NPR’s The Salt, NBC’s Cosmic Log, Science, Business Insider, and Gizmodo. He is currently executive producer at the American Chemical Society. Ingredients is his first book.
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