Chew On This by Eric Schlosser & Charles Wilson

In this book you will learn things that you never knew about food. For example you learn about the fifteen year old who invented the hamburger. You will see how French fries are often shot through a superpowerd gun-and what makes them taste so good. As well as learning the secret ingredient that makes your drink pink and a special ingredient often found in meat. You will explore the six weeks that a fast food chicken lives before it becomes a chicken nugget. Examine a table of healthy and unhealthy human body parts- and see what happens inside your body when you eat too much junk. This book is an eye opener to what we are really eating outside.

Excerpt: the story of fast food begins in October 1885, near the small town of Seymour, Wisconsin. A Friendly and outgoing fifteen-year-old boy named Charllie Nagreen was driving his family’s ox cart down a dirt road amid wide-open fields. Charlie was going to Outagamie County’s first annual fair, where he wanted to earn some extra money selling meatballs. What happened next was the unlikely origin of a delicious sandwich that would one day change the world. As Charlie sold meatballs at the fair, he noticed that customers had trouble eating them and strolling at the same time. People were impatient. They wanted to visit Mr. John Bull popular beehives(encased in glass), to see fancy new harvesting machines, and to enjoy all the other thrilling attraction at the fair. they didn’t want to waste time eating meatballs put them between two slices of bread, people could walk and eat. And so Charlie invented the hamburger.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. Will it be fast food tonight, or something organic? Or perhaps something organic? Or perhaps something we few ourselves? The question of what to have for dinner has confronted us since man discovered fire. But as Micheal Pollan explains in this revolutionary book, how we answer it now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may determine our survival as a species. Packed with profound surprises, The Omnivore’s Dilemma is changing the way Americans think about the politics, perils and pleasures of eating.

Excerpt: Air-conditioned, odorless, illuminated by buzzing fluorescent tubes, the American supermarket doesn’t present itself as having very much to do with Nature. And yet what is this place if not a landscape (man-made), it’s true) teeming with plants and animals? I’m not just talking about the produce section or meat counter, either-the supermarket’s flora and fauna. Ecologically speaking, these are this landscape’s most legible zones, the places where it doesn’t take a field guide to identify the resident species. Over there’s your eggplant, onion, potato, and leek; your apple, banana and orange. Spritzed with morning dew every few minutes, Produce is only corner of the supermarket where we’re apt to think “Ah, yes, the bounty of Nature!” which probably explains why such a garden of fruits and vegetables (sometimes flowers too) is what usually greets the shopper coming through the automatic doors.

Droughts (Witness to Disaster) by Judy & Dennis Fradin

In this book, Judy and Dennis fradin take us from our present day troubles to the worst drought in American history, the Dust Bowel. Eyewitness accounts combined with haunting photographs capture the poignancy desperation of these years. The Fradins have woven these accounts together with an in-depth look at the various causes of drought, a brief history of the most famous droughts, and a look at the efforts of scientists to understand why droughts, a brief history of the most famous droughts, and look at the efforts of scientists to understand why droughts happen and what can be done about it.

Excerpt: The inhabitants of Rajpar, India, were desperate for water. During periods of ample rainfall, villagers lowered buckets a short way down Rajpar’s big well, and then pulled up the water- filled containers. In the year 2000, however, due to a long dry spell, the well contained only a barely visible puddle at the bottom. To get it, villagers lowered a volunteer down the well with ropes. Deeper and deeper she went: 50 feet below ground level. There-20 stories beneath the Earth’s surface- she filled containers with water from the bottom of the well. She was then pulled up to the surface, where she distributed the precious liquid to her neighbors.

Scary Medical Stories by Marie Noble

Many years ago in Europe, people believed that an evil spirit was sweeping across the land. It killed people by the thousands. The deaths were agonizing and gruesome. Before long, the only sounds in the streets were the tolling of funeral bells and the wheels of carts carrying away the dead. Centuries later, several children in a small village in Peru became so frantic that they had to be tied to their beds. Some screamed in terror, while others foamed at the mouth. All of them had one thing in common: They had been bitten by vampire bats. After a woman last her ability to speak, tests revealed a dark spot in her brain. The good news? The spot was not a tumor. The bad news? The spot was a tapeworm, living in her brain. These and other true stories of medical mysteries and terrors await you inside Scary Medical Stories.

Excerpt: The human body is almost too amazing to be believed. Consider these facts: Our heart beats around 100,000 times a day, continuously pumping blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels. And we take more than 25,000 breaths a day. We do all this without even thinking about it. When we touch something, information about what we’ve touched races to our brain at about 240 miles an hour. And our brain holds five times more information than an entire set of encyclopedias. Our eyes can recognize close to one million different colors and shapes. A sneeze rockets dust out of our nose at nearly 100 miles an hour. Perhaps one of the most astounding things about the body is that it can repair itself. Except for our teeth, every bit of our body is living, growing tissue. More than 2 trillion new cells are formed in our body every day. So if we’re healthy, tissue can heal and rebuild itself when it’s broken or torn.