The concern of Part VII is with the impact of economics, governments, politics, and special interest groups on diet in the twentieth century. It begins with the attention that nationalistic governments in the West belatedly paid to the nutritional health of their citizens at the turn of the twentieth century – the health of women, who provided offspring to strengthen the state demographically, and the health of men, who were called upon to fight for it. Mostly, however, Western governments have stopped short of active intervention in ensuring the food supply of individuals, and as the chapters on food entitlements and subsidies for infants and children make clear, such intervention – save for helping the very young – continues to be viewed with sufficient hostility that it is only grudgingly (and only partially) undertaken.

If governments are reluctant to underwrite food entitlements, however, they are much more willing to ensure the dissemination of nutritional guidelines, such as those discussed in the chapter dealing with recommended daily allowances of the chief nutrients and another treating recent food labeling requirements. Yet governments do not act in a vacuum, and the chapter on food lobbies in the United States (and elsewhere by implication) demonstrates the enormous ability of special interests to influence food policy, including the content of much of the nutritional information aimed at informing the public.

The question of the desirability of more or less government involvement in food matters runs deeply through the next few chapters. That food biotechnology may turn out to be a blessing, a curse, or both is a concern of considerable magnitude, and rightfully so, as the chapter on its politics and implications for policy makes evident. However, in what is becoming a roller-coaster look at new food technology, the chapter that follows on biotechnology and food safety seems more reassuring.