By focusing on vitamins at the expense of everything else, we?ve become blind to the bigger picture: despite our belief that vitamins are an absolute good?and the more of them, the better?vitamins are actually small and surprisingly mysterious pieces of a much larger nutritional puzzle. What?s more, what we think we know is harming both our personal nutrition and our national health. Her book offers a compelling new perspective on our quest for perfect diets, perfect bodies and perfect health.'e A hidden, many-faceted, and urgent story.'e -Booklist, *STARRED*Most of us know nothing about vitamins. Vitamania is carefully researched, and Price is a curious writer engaged with her subject. Another problem was the anxiety created by experts such as Elmer McCollum, who popularized the use of vitamins, but also employed scare tactics that we are still susceptible to today. Does it really matter that Pop Tarts have been laced with essential nutrients? They're still Pop Tarts. Once those processed foods became enriched with vitamins, they took on a perception of healthiness they didn't actually deserve. As Price explains, people became more enamored of processed foods, which lack many of the healthy benefits of whole foods. The discovery of vitamins led to problems as well as solutions, however.

Once those nutrients were ingested, people usually recovered. Many diseases, such as scurvy or beriberi, resulted from a lack of specific nutrients. The discovery of the substances eventually called vitamins solved a lot of the problems that had plagued humankind for a long time. What's stunning about her research is how little we actually know about our bodies and the way they employ these chemicals. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Catherine Price’s new book, Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection, because it reveals where some of these ideas and habits originated. As a young mother, I remember obsessing over my daughters' eating habits, wondering if their growth would be stunted by the omission of a key nutrient. I don't remember asking why-it was just part of our morning ritual as we siblings sat down for breakfast. As a child, I remember eating chalky Flintstone vitamins.

Vitamania by catherine price