What’s in a kebab? Best not to know...
FOOD UNWRAPPED
by Daniel Tapper
(Bantam £14.99 % £11.24)
BRITAIN may not be the culinary backwater it once was but, even in an age of foodies, our ignorance about what we eat remains prodigious. Daniel Tapper aims to throw light on how our food is really produced by answering a series of questions we might all ask.
What is in a doner kebab? (Arguably, best not to know.) Do free-range eggs taste better? Will ‘lite’ foods help you to lose weight?
His book is a mine of food-related trivia. Some cereals contain enough iron filings for you to be able to move individual flakes simply by passing a magnet over your breakfast bowl.
inspired by a Channel 4 series, Food unwrapped is also a serious contribution to the ongoing debate about what and how we eat.
SOD 70! THE GUIDE TO LIVING WELL
by Sir Muir Gray
(Bloomsbury £12.99 % £9.74)
AGEING is not a disease, and old age is not a diagnosis. As Sir Muir Gray, one of the uk’s leading medical figures, indicates in this optimistic manifesto for later life, there’s no need to assume that a 70th birthday should be a day of gloom, rather than celebration.
With a bit of luck, if we follow the programme of body and brain fitness he outlines here, we could still be happy and healthy into our 80s and 90s.
But his advice can sometimes cross the boundary between sound common sense and statements of the blindingly obvious.
Yes, it certainly helps a poor memory to write down appointments and, yes, a smartphone offers an easy way to do this — but is the average 70year-old really so lacking in nous that Sir Muir needs to point these things out?
Such quibbles aside, Sod 70! is a refreshingly positive guide to enjoying our later years.
GROWING OLDER WITHOUT FEELING OLD
by Rudi Westendorp
(Scribe £14.99)
in THE course of the 20th century, average life expectancy in the developed world rose from 40 years to 80 years. The likelihood of reaching the age of 65 increased threefold, from 30 per cent to 90 per cent.
And the chances are that some children alive today will survive to be 135 years old.
These revolutionary changes in lifespans demand equally revolutionary changes in attitudes to ageing. Dutch gerontologist Rudi Westendorp outlines what these might be.
Perhaps most importantly, we should understand that vitality and ageing are not directly related. Zest for life is not restricted to the young, and we should beware of seeing the old as nothing more than problems for medicine to try to solve.
His arguments seem eminently reasonable. At a time when too much of what is written about the elderly is depressingly downbeat, dwelling only on decline and dementia, Westendorp’s book provides a valuable and cheering alternative.
SEVEN BRIEF LESSONS ON PHYSICS
by Carlo Rovelli
(Allen Lane £9.99 % £7.49)
in THE past century, science has revealed that the physical world is nothing like our instinctive understanding of it.
Einstein’s theories of relativity showed that the old newtonian view of the universe was inadequate. And for modern physics, time, which shapes all our lives, appears to be nothing more than a persistent, stubborn illusion.
it’s all very confusing for non-scientists. There have been plenty of attempts in recent years to explain the basic concepts to us, but few as elegant and concise as Carlo Rovelli’s.
it is, as its title suggests, a very short book. Ten pounds for a couple of hours’ reading may, at first sight, seem a poor bargain, but there’s enough food for thought here to last a lifetime.