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  • Published: 27 August 2020
  • ISBN: 9781473583184
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $24.99

Spoon-Fed

Why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong




One of the world’s leading scientists of food and nutrition reveals why so much of the current advice about food and nutrition is dangerously inaccurate, misleading and often downright wrong.

Brought to you by Penguin.

We are all bombarded with advice about what we should and shouldn’t eat, and new scientific discoveries are announced every day. Yet the more we are told about nutrition, the less we seem to understand.

Through his pioneering scientific research, Tim Spector has been shocked to discover how little good evidence there is for many of our most deep-rooted ideas about food. In a series of short, myth-busting chapters, Spoon-Fed reveals why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong. Spector explores the scandalous lack of good science behind many medical and government food recommendations, and how the food industry holds sway over these policies and our choices.

Spoon-Fed is a groundbreaking book that forces us to question every diet plan, official recommendation, miracle cure or food label we encounter, and encourages us to rethink our whole relationship with food.

Diet may be the most important medicine we all possess. We urgently need to learn how best to use it, not just for our health as individuals but for the future of the planet.

©Tim Spector 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

  • Published: 27 August 2020
  • ISBN: 9781473583184
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $24.99

About the author

Tim Spector

Tim Spector is a professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London and honorary consultant physician at Guy's and St Thomas’ Hospitals. He is a multi-award-winning expert in personalised medicine and the gut microbiome, and the author of four books, including the bestselling The Diet Myth. He appears regularly on TV and radio around the world, and has written for the Guardian, BMJ, and many other publications. He is the lead researcher behind the world’s biggest citizen science health project, the COVID Symptom Study app. This free tool has been used by nearly 4 million people in the UK, US and Sweden to diagnose themselves without testing. It has confirmed new symptoms and risk factors for the virus, allowing scientists to monitor its progress and warn health authorities.

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Praise for Spoon-Fed

A hugely enjoyable and critical look at common food myths... A worthy successor to his previous best seller, The Diet Myth.

Michael Mosley

The nutrition revolution is well underway and Tim Spector is one of the visionaries leading the way. His writing is illuminating and so incredibly timely.

Yotam Ottolenghi

Sacred cows fall thick and fast in this slim but densely packed volume... A clarion call for change... This book should be available on prescription.

Felicity Cloake, Literary Review

Will actually help you decide what to add to your next grocery shop... This is one of the clearest and most accessible short nutrition books I have read: refreshingly open-minded, deeply informative and free of faddish diet rules.

Bee Wilson, Guardian

Spoon-Fed is the gastro-science literature flavour of the month.

Niall Toner, Sunday Times

A remarkable book... It's a smoothie-dropping read.

Michael Odell, The Times

Dispelling decades of misinformation...Spoon-Fed is a fascinating read.

Tony Turnbull, The Times

There is much to savour in Spector's breezy demolition of the claims of both the greedy food corporations and the joyless "food police".

Jonathan Prynn, Evening Standard

The bestselling author of The Diet Myth, Tim Spector has built a reputation as a culinary demystifier. In his latest, Spoon-Fed...he dishes up a...correction to the nonsense routinely peddled by self-appointed diet gurus.

Rachel Farrow, Express and Star