Nestle, nutrition chair at New York University and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General Report, has served her time in the dietary trenches and is ideally suited to revealing how government nutritional advice is watered down when a message might threaten industry sales. (Her report on byzantine nutritional food-pyramid rewordings to avoid "eat less" recommendations is together predictable and astonishing.) She has other "war stories," too, this involve marketing to kids in school (in the shape of soft-drink "pouring rights" agreements, hallway advertising, and quick-food coupon giveaways), and diet-supplement dramas in which manufacturers and the government enter regulation frays, together with the industry championing "free choice" even as this position counters consumer protection. Is there hope? "If we would like to encourage people to eat better diets," says Nestle, "we want to target societal means to counter food industry lobbying and marketing practices as well as the education of individuals." It's a telling conclusion in an engrossing and masterfully panoramic exposé. --Arthur Boehm