SFBayStyle: The Unhealthy Truth

June 09, 2009

The Unhealthy Truth - Book Review

It started with an egg.

One egg resulted in a complete life change for Colorado mother of four, Robyn O'Brien.

One morning Robyn fed her baby daughter, Tory her first ever egg and then put her down for a nap. A short while later Robyn checked in on Tory and found the little girl's face bright red and swollen up like a balloon. An ER visit, a dose of antihistamine and Tory recovered. Later the family found out that their daughter had an allergic reaction to the egg she ate and that's where the story beings.

In her book, The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It (Broadway Books, 2009), Robyn O'Brien takes a very complicated subject and breaks it down for us, while sharing her family's experience and citing studies, facts and statistics.

A conservative Republican raised in Houston, Texas Robyn was an unlikely candidate for questioning the American norm. But after discovering her daughter's allergy to eggs, she felt something wasn't right and so she began educate herself. Why are so many children (and adults) suffering from food allergies and asthma? What's the connection between these now common afflictions and Genetically Modified foods, food additives, chemicals, and pesticides? What role is Corporate America playing in our food chain? Armed with an MBA and extensive experience as an financial analyst, Robyn started digging and has unearthed some unsettling facts.

From 1990 to 2003 global incidence of childhood allergies, asthma, and eczema increased by 0.5 percent annually.

For the past 15 years much of our nation's milk has come from cows injected with a genetically engineered growth hormone.

Milk allergy is now the most common food allergy in the United States.

In the U.S. sixty percent of our calories come from processed food.

In addition to laying out the facts, Robyn explains why Genetically Modified foods are not good and how additives are harming us. She also offers help on how to clean up our diet, pointing out what foods are a less healthy choice and what are better alternatives. She gives kid-friendly healthy snack suggestions and menus. She shares her experience with her own four children switching from processed packaged foods to fresh, organic foods, offering tips on how to make a smooth transition for you and your family.

If you eat food - read this book!