"America's greatest nutritional need sometimes seems to be for accurate information."

Diane Woznicki and Hien Nguyen, Priorities, vol. 7, no. 3, 1995

In 1993, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) attracted extensive media attention when it reported that Chinese restaurant food is unhealthy. A meal of kung pao chicken, the center claimed, is comparable to "four McDonald's quarter- pounders." In the months that followed this news, the CSPI focused on several other types of food—including Italian food, Mexican food, and movie-theater popcorn—that, according to the center's findings, contained unhealthy levels of salt and fat. The center declared that fettuccine Alfredo is "a heart attack on a plate," that eating "chile rellenos is like eating a whole stick of butter," and that a medium-sized container of movie-theater popcorn with butter-flavored topping contains "more fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big-Mac-with-fries lunch, and a steak dinner with...