Book cover of Pure Adulteration

Book description

Benjamin R. Cohen uses the pure food crusades at the turn of the twentieth century to provide a captivating window onto the origins of manufactured foods in the United States.

In the latter nineteenth century, extraordinary changes in food and agriculture gave rise to new tensions in the ways people…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Pure Adulteration as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

"Pure Adulteration" uses the lens of food production to investigate how the manipulation of food products shaped US Gilded Age and Progressive ideas about nature, health, and purity. If you are what you eat, we're all at least a little artificial, and Cohen shows how 150-year-old ideas shape what and how we eat in the present.

If you love Pure Adulteration...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Want books like Pure Adulteration?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 2 books like Pure Adulteration.

Browse books like Pure Adulteration

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,298

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Pure Adulteration, you might also like...

Book cover of Karl's War

Karl's War by Neil Spark,

Karl's War is a coming-of-age-meets-thriller set in Germany on the eve of Hitler coming to power. Karl – a reluctant poster boy for the Nazis – meets Jewish Ben and his world is up-turned.

Ben and his family flee to France. Karl joins the German army but deserts and finds…

Book cover of Girl in the Ashes

Girl in the Ashes by Douglas Weissman,

Odette Lefebvre is a serial killer stalking the shadows of Nazi-occupied Paris and must confront both the evils of those she murders and the darkness of her own past.

This young woman's childhood trauma shapes her complex journey through World War II France, where she walks a razor's edge…