Healthy Highways: Nikki and David Goldbeck

Ever been out of town and craving health food with no idea where to find it? Roam the streets no longer. Healthy Highways: The Traveler’s Guide to Healthy Eating (2004), is a glove-compartment atlas with listings and directions to 1,900 food stores and eateries scattered across all 50 states. The innovative guide—written up in Self, the Miami Herald, Muscle & Fitness and other national publications—seems poised to succeed along the lines of The Supermarket Handbook (1973), the bestseller that launched authors Nikki and David Goldbeck into the food-writing limelight. Kicky in design and layout, easy to read, and fun to use, the natural foods gurus’ latest release seems to proclaim Charles Reich’s 1970 vision alive and kicking—despite these fast-lane, drive-thru times.

The Goldbecks themselves contributed to the zeitgeist Reich examined over 30 years ago in The Greening of America, a book that analyzed youth revolutions aimed at making the country livable. Nikki, a certified dietitian-nutritionist and consultant, penned her debut in 1972 with the health-oriented Cooking What Comes Naturally. David, a law school graduate-turned food educator, established Ceres Press in 1977 and wrote his groundbreaking guide The Smart Kitchen in 1994. Having now studied the American diet for more than 30 years and between them authored 10 books related to that subject, the Goldbecks bring a wealth of experience to their newest project.

The concept for Healthy Highways originates with The Tofu Tollbooth by Dar Williams (with Elizabeth Zipern), for which the Goldbecks issued the second edition in 1998. The publishers bought the rights to that pithy travel guide when Williams lost interest in updating it; its descendent, Healthy Highways, contains 100 percent new material, completely updated, more expansive, and more comprehensive. Using Williams’ material as a touchstone, the Goldbecks performed online research and culled recommendations from likeminded “tripsters” in preparing their version. They compiled extensive mailing lists and sent out information forms to establishments, then followed up with phone calls and Web site visits. The authors thought the book would write itself, then discovered that stores and restaurants are often too busy to fill out a form. “It took a lot of time and detective work, especially to gather entries for places like Chattanooga, Tennessee,” says Nikki.

Nikki also devoted hours to combing MapQuest for explicit compass points. “I thought proprietors or workers would give good directions, but then you realize a lot of times they’re very local—that a street might have four different names…We include approximate mileage from the nearest highway exit because there’s nothing so frustrating as thinking you might be lost.” There are two main symbols in Healthy Highways: a shopping cart for “natural food store” and a crossed knife and fork for “restaurant,” listed side by side for dual-purpose places. Two ancillary symbols connote “handicap accessible restrooms” (a wheelchair figure) and “no credit cards accepted” (a slashed circle). This simple coding allows “people to see what approximate price range and style each is—whether sit down or take out,” says Nikki.

Designed with motorists, bikers, and hikers in mind and billed by the authors as “the answer to supersize, calorie-laden, high-fat meals,” Healthy Highways features descriptions, addresses, phone numbers, hours of operation and tasting menus for every listing. It encompasses a variety of choices, from a burrito street cart in Washington, dc, to an elegant gourmet vegetarian restaurant and wine bar in Manhattan. “Some of the places do serve meat, but also emphasize vegetarian, organic perspectives,” says Nikki. “We don’t list ethnic restaurants because most of these traditionally have vegetarian or vegan offerings and there are simply too many. But we do include those that are exclusively vegetarian or surpass usual expectations in terms of whole foods emphasis or organic choices.”