Per-Fo

So I read "The Road to Wellness" this weekend thinking that we have Book Group this coming Wednesday (because that is what is says below), but Paige's calendar says next meeting is May 14 (which actually makes more sense).

Anyway. Whichever it is, I am prepared.  Here are some thoughts/questions about the book (it is just a start, I will think of more later:

1. Who invented peanut butter? Was it Dr. Kellogg (as stated in the book) or George Washington Carver (as stated by Paige)?

2. When did the USDA require packaged foods to provide lists of ingredients and nutritional values?

3. The health food movements of Battle Creek remind me of today's Slow Food Movement. Are there any modern food lessons to be learned from life at the Sanitarium?

4. I think the discussion of advertising in this book is really interesting - and reminds me of Al Gore's upcoming advertising campaign to fight global warming via pop culture. Brings up question: how to motivate a large group of people to collectively change their behavior? In the case of global warming that means reducing your footprint. In the case of diet, that means eating smarter, eating local, eating healthy, etc.  Many experts write books extolling all kinds of different lifestyles/decisions. Do you think they hope readers will change their lifestyles, pass along the book, inspiring others to change their lifestyles, etc. etc?  

I guess my big question is HOW DO YOU START A SOCIAL MOVEMENT?

Next book club

Our next read is The Road to Wellville by T. C. Boyle. We'll meet on April 16 at 7:00 pm at my house.

The contenders for next time

Here are a couple ideas for the next book:

The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle (connection: health as social capital???)
Red River by Lalita Tademy (connection: family ties, survival)
Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Merinissi (connection: unconventional childhood memoir)

Some seemingly random choices, perhaps, but they're all on my list to read. I'm 100% open to comments about which one seems most interesting to you.