JACOBSON, Michael F. 1943-

PERSONAL: Born July 29, 1943, in Chicago, IL; son of Larry and Janet (Siegel) Jacobson. Education: University of Chicago, B.A., 1965; graduate study at University of California—San Diego, 1965-67; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D., 1969.

ADDRESSES: Office—Center for Science in the Public Interest, 1501 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20036.

CAREER: Consumer advocate and writer. Research associate, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 1970-71; Center for the Study of Responsive Law, Washington, DC, technical consultant, 1970-71; Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, DC, co-director, 1971-77, executive director, 1977—; Center for the Study of Commercialism, founder, 1990.

WRITINGS:

Eater's Digest: The Consumer's Factbook of Food Additives, 1972, revised and updated as The Complete Eater's Digest and Nutrition Scoreboard, Anchor Press/Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1985.

How Sodium Nitrite Can Affect Your Health, Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington, DC), 1973.

(With Sandy Kageyama) Scorecard for Better Eating, Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington, DC), 1973.

Nutrition Scoreboard, Avon (New York, NY), 1975.

(Editor, with Catherine Lerza) Food for People, Not for Profit, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1975.

Chemical Additives in Booze, Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington, DC), 1982.

(With George Hacker and Robert Atkins) The BoozeMerchants, Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington, DC), 1983.

Salt, the Brand Name Guide to Sodium Content, Workman (New York, NY), 1983.

(With Sarah Fritschner) The Fast-Food Guide: What'sGood, What's Bad, and How to Tell the Difference, Workman (New York, NY), 1986, revised as The Completely Revised and Updated Fast-Food Guide: What's Good, What's Bad, and How to Tell the Difference, 1991.

(With Paula Klevan Zeller) Eat, Think, and BeHealthy!: Creative Nutrition Activities for Children, Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington, DC), 1987.

(With Charles P. Mitchell) Tainted Booze: TheConsumer's Guide to Urethane in Alcoholic Beverages, Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington, DC), 1988.

(With Lisa Y. Lefferts and Anne Witte Garland)) SafeFood: Eating Wisely in a Risky World, Living Planet Press (Los Angeles, CA), 1991.

(With Laura Hill) Kitchen Fun for Kids: HealthyRecipes and Nutrition Facts for 7-to-12- Year-Old Cooks, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Bruce Maxwell) What Are We Feeding OurKids?, Workman (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Laurie Ann Mazur) Marketing Madness: ASurvival Guide for a Consumer Society, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1995.

Restaurant Confidential: The Shocking Truth aboutWhat You're Really Eating when You're Eating Out, Workman (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to Time-Life Science Annual. Contributor of about three dozen articles to magazines, including Progressive, Smithsonian, Instructor, and Newsday, and to newspapers.

SIDELIGHTS: Michael F. Jacobson has spent most of his professional career as director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization whose primary goal is to ensure the safety and nutritional quality of the food supply in the United States. Toward this goal, Jacobson has written or coauthored several books.

Kitchen Fun for Kids: Healthy Recipes and Nutrition Facts for 7-to-12-Year-Old Cooks, promotes a better understanding of nutrition on a child's level. The recipes listed in this collection lean toward low-fat and low-sugar recipes that children can put together themselves. Besides providing easy-to-prepare recipes, the book also explains various aspects of food and why the body needs them. For instance, Jacobson defines words such as carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, and minerals. The book also guides children through basic kitchen techniques, such as dicing vegetables and cracking eggs.

Children are not the only audience on which Jacobson is focusing his attention. He most often writes to adults about such topics as salt intake, the consumption of alcohol, and the problems surrounding chemical additives in the food supply. He also writes about food in general, as in his book Safe Food: Eating Wisely in a Risky World. In this book, Jacobson argues that consumers need to be aware of the ingredients present in the food that they buy; and he doesn't just mean the additives. He's also referring to the pesticides and other drug residues that agricultural companies use. Jacobson's book presents the risks, but he also offers suggestions on how to improve the food that people eat, how to prepare food to avoid, or at least decrease, the risk of food-born diseases. Although Virginia N. Hillers, writing for the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, thought that Jacobson and his coauthors were possibly over-reacting in their suggestions, she did conclude that people "should be grateful to the authors for presenting the entire gamut of food safety issues in one book." On the other hand, Kirk Johnson, for East West Natural Health, referred to Safe Food as "a beacon of hope" in the "morass" that has come to define the current agricultural practices in this country. Johnson went on to call Safe Food "a practical strategy" for anyone who picks up this book and follows the advice that Jacobson offers.

With the 1995 publication of Marketing Madness: A Survival Guide for a Consumer Society, Jacobson moves away from food and focuses on the social effects of what Jonathan Rowe, for the Washington Monthly, referred to as the "$150 billion" that the "corporate sector in America" spends on advertising, almost as much money "as the nation spends on higher education." Jacobson points out that it's not just television commercials that bombard the average American citizen everyday but also that teenagers are targeted at school, at shopping malls, and at the movies. The poorer sections of large cities are also a favorite place to put up large billboards that push cigarettes and alcohol. Stories in popular magazines are also often influenced by the magazines' advertisers, who threaten to pull their ads if a particular article makes a negative reference to one of their products. "In a just world," wrote Rowe, Jacobson's book "would find its way into the nation's classrooms," suggesting that Marketing Madness should become a part of the school curriculum.

Jacobson took on the restaurant business with his 2002 book Restaurant Confidential. Jacobson, who admits that he likes eating out, offers tips on how to do so and stay healthy. He explains how many restaurants offer foods laden with fat, which not only adds calories but also adds cholesterol to one's diet. The book offers a so-called Restaurant Hall of Shame in which Jacobson lists some of the most popular restaurants and their foods that have the highest counts of calories and fat. In an article written for Chain Leader, a reviewer stated that Jacobson and his coauthor claim that the restaurant "industry's high-calorie and high-fat fare may be contributing to obesity and other diet-related diseases."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chain Leader, July, 2002, review of Restaurant Confidential, p. 2.

East West Natural Health, March-April 1992, Kirk Johnson, review of Safe Food: Eating Wisely in a Risky World, p. 35.

Environmental Nutrition, April, 1992, review of Kitchen Fun for Kids, p. 3.

Journal of the American Dietetic Association, January, 1992, Virginia N. Hillers, review of Safe Food, p. 132.

Library Journal, July, 1991, Loraine F. Sweetland, review of Safe Food, p. 126; April 1, 1995, Edward Buller, review of Marketing Madness: A Survival Guide for a Consumer Society, pp. 105-106.

New York Times, July 10, 1991, Marian Burros, review of Safe Food, p. B6.

Publishers Weekly, February 27, 1995, review of Marketing Madness, p. 100; January 28, 2002, "How to Bypass the Bypass," review of Restaurant Confidential, p. 255; April 15, 2002, review of Restaurant Confidential, pp. 57-58.

School Library Journal, October, 1991, Joyce Adams Burner, review of Kitchen Fun for Kids, pp. 138-139.

Washington Monthly, June, 1995, Jonathan Rowe, review of Marketing Madness, pp. 52-53.*