This Is What You Just Put in Your Mouth? From Eggnog to Beef Jerky, the Surprising Secrets of What’s Inside Everyday Products[em] [/em]

In this lively, informative, and sometimes downright disturbing collection, Make: magazine editor Di Justo reprints columns from his former “What’s Inside” feature for Wired, in which he took everyday products—edible and otherwise—and broke them down by ingredient and purpose. Though this project skews heavily toward scientific description, he injects humor and accessibility into each entry, explaining the form and function of everything from ethanol to zinc carbonate (“natural flavor”). He also provides newly written backstories for many of the previously published entries, describing his research process and the pitfalls of dealing with uncooperative companies—such as the time he almost brought down the eggnog industry just before Christmas, his attempts to obtain real pictures of heroin, and an ultimately fruitless quest to discover just how potato starch is modified. Nothing is sacred: Di Justo dissects coffee and Cool Whip, Hot Pockets and Slim Jims—even golf balls and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. The goal, he explains, isn’t to scare readers or enrage them, but to inform and educate. Readers will never take the products around them for granted again. [em]Agent: Daniel Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (Feb.) [/em]