True his tongue: a sociologist who loves to eat debunks culinary correctness.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: The Gospel of Food - Book review

YEARS AGO, I interviewed Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, for a National Review article about his group's highly publicized reports decrying the delicious dangers lurking in popular restaurant dishes. "I like my vegetables and rice as much as somebody likes their steak and French fries" he told me. "No, you don't," I thought. The cadaverous Jacobson, who looks like he is conducting a life extension experiment involving extreme calorie restriction, routinely reduces the dining experience to numbers indicating nutritional assets and liabilities, treating pleasure as, at best, an after-thought.

To some extent, Barry Glassner, author of The Gospel of Food (Harper-Collins), errs in the opposite direction. Glassner, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, is no fatty, but his frequent references to memorable gustatory treats--including "sauteed Moulard duck foie gras with pickled white nectarines, onions, and arugula" at the French Laundry, "tasting menus" prepared by star chefs Daniel Boulard and Thomas Keller, and a "deeply chocolate fondant with a vanilla and toasted almond ice cream" served at an organic food fair--started to get on my nerves after a while. Still, his acute attack on culinary correctness demonstrates that his heart is in the right place: smack dab in the middle of his taste buds.

"Some of us see eating as something we get to do, a privilege and source of joy," Glassner writes. "Others view eating as something they have to do." He is referring to New York Times health columnist Jane Brody, but the same description applies to Jacobson (who gets his share of criticism elsewhere in the book) and every other nutrition nag who rigidly assigns foods to recommended and prohibited categories. Glassner understands that any food can be made to seem good or bad depending on which features one chooses to emphasize, and that a dish's merits cannot be fully captured by a table listing vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, fats, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar.

Glassner is not oblivious to health concerns, but he points out when they are exaggerated or mistaken (as you would expect from the author of The Culture of Fear, a 1999 book that debunked such bugaboos as road rage, Internet addiction, and school violence). He correctly notes that the science linking eating to health is fuzzier than know-it-alls such as Brody and Jacobson like to admit, especially when it comes to...