This Is What You Just Put in Your Mouth?

December 1, 2014
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. Agent: Daniel Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency.

January 1, 2015

Wired columnist Di Justo sums up the ingredients of cigarettes as "cheesy foot smell, beaver juice, and the original smokable weed" in this informative and irreverent collection of articles that comprise several years of research. His entertaining book investigates what is in the common products that we eat and use on a daily basis. Each product's ingredient list is covered in a few pages that are followed by backstory on how Di Justo went about researching the item. He recounts cold calls to companies, how helpful they were, but more often than not, how they refused to help. It is surprising to learn what many of the additives in the products are used for and how they are obtained. Although the nitty-gritty of many chemical compounds and their properties is addressed, it is done in straightforward language that general readers will understand and enjoy. VERDICT While many solid texts, such as Grace Ross Lewis's 1001 Chemicals in Everyday Products define the ingredients in household goods, Di Justo's book offers a contextual narrative and an element of humor that makes it amusing and educational reading.--Laurie Neuerburg, Victoria Coll.-Univ. of Houston Lib.

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