Goldbeck's Guide to Good Food

This revised, expanded version of the Goldbecks' 1973 seminal bestseller The Supermarket Handbook is packed with new, solid information about food processing, preservation and packaging, recent changes in federal labeling laws, and reflects the latest nutritional data on sodium, cholesterol, fats and the like. But Guide to Good Food is not nearly as serviceable as its predecessor, which, in addition to providing general consumer information about food and nutrition, was a balanced, practical guide to shopping at your local supermarket for the most wholesome and additive-free staples. The Goldbecks' latest offering, however, includes food brands available chiefly in health and natural foods stores. The book's changes shift it out of the genre of practical handbook and into the domain of food-activist education. Placing material on government regulation of the food industry in the first two chapters, for example, with section headers like ""The Circle of Poison,'' lends the book a crusading tone that may putor scareoff readers who want to know what's right among available foods, not every possible thing that's wrong with them. Illustrations not seen by PW. (October 30)