Do you ever wonder how kids can learn about the food they eat, buy and prepare? I've gathered a list of some outstanding and enlightening books that are about food, the food industry and recipes that kids can enjoy and get healthy.

Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food, by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson, is a paperback book that teens through adults should read. I was amazed to learn of the low amount of nutrition that is found in most fast food. I was also surprised to see how much fast food Americans eat!

Here is a book that takes you through a very interesting and easy to read summary of the beginnings of the fast food industry and how the giant corporations spend millions of dollars on experimenting and dissecting food to figure out what new product we'd like to eat at fast food restaurants. You'll learn about how clean it is — or not clean — behind the counters, the teens that are hired to cook and run these chains, and the impact on our health.

One thing for sure is that after reading this book, you'll probably want to stay home and prepare something healthy and get a good workout instead of driving to one of these fast food chains!

Ending the Food Fight: Guide Your Child to a Healthy Weight in a Fast Food/Fake Food World, by Dr. David Ludwig, is another excellent book to help navigate families toward a successful and healthy lifestyle by eating and exercising properly. Dr. Ludwig outlines a good diet for families by informing us in the first two chapters the foundation of understanding.

Part I discusses overweight issues and in helping children begin to grasp the importance of a healthy body. Part II moves into the physiological aspect of understanding when you have the feeling of not being hungry anymore and of the value of being physically fit. The rest of the book lays out the doctor's 9-week program with action plans to set success into motion. There are even healthy recipes included near the end of the book.

Although this book is written for parents, it's really for kids of all ages to participate in a food plan where they can stick to it and begin to feel good about themselves.

The rest of the food books are geared for kids and this next book is one that all ages will really enjoy! Chewy, Gooey, Rumble, Plop! A Deliciously Disgusting Pop-up Guide to the Digestive System, by Steve Alton, and illustrated by Nick Sharratt, is an amazing inside look into what happens to the food we eat as it travels down our throats and into our digestive system.

The cover alone will pull the reader in because of the inventive packaging technique. There's a three-dimensional tongue that you can pull out and touch. Upon opening the first page, a mouth pops out to show the parts of taste located on different places of the tongue. Fold-outs, pull-tabs and pop-outs are throughout, making this enticing read much more that you bargained for as the reader will come away knowing much more about how food is digested!

It's always good to be able to have fun with food. Everything but the Kitchen Sink: Weird Stuff You Didn't Know About Food, by Frieda Wishinsky and Elizabeth MacLeod, and illustrated by Travis King, is full of fun, interesting and humorous information. The contents relay a little history, trivia and even some fun experiments and recipes to try out in your kitchen. Did you know that the word “breakfast” comes from breaking the fast after not eating all night during your sleep? And did you know that eating cereal in the morning will help fight colds? This kid-friendly book is easily accessible, making reading it fun and enjoyable! It would be the perfect companion to read aloud in the car!

Sam Stern's Real Food Real Fast: Quick & Healthy Eating from the British Teen Cooking Sensation has a wonderful layout full of photos of what the food should look like and easy to read directions of the recipes that make up this cookbook.

What makes this recipe book unique, besides the fact that the author is a teen, is the way he's devised the recipes. There are tabs throughout that say 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes depending on how much time you want to spend preparing the food. There are even simple directions at the beginning of the book for novice cooks that give “Top Ten Time Tips.” One includes how to turn the oven on to get it ready. Kids will love the layout and end result.