Currently browsing posts about: Books

Stephen Ritz with Suzie Boss.  The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools.  Rodale, 2017.  

I did a blurb for this most entertaining book:

Here’s proof positive that one person can make a difference.  Stephen Ritz uses food plants—the Bronx Green Machine–to transform kids and their school environments.  You can do this too!

Katy Keiffer. What’s the Matter with Meat?  Reaktion Books, 2017.

Katy has a terrific show on Heritage Radio that I’ve been on several times and I was happy to do a blurb for her new book:

Katy Keiffer has produced a thorough and well researched analysis of everything that’s wrong with industrial meat production.  Her book is worth reading for its focus on animal welfare, antibiotic resistance, and worker safety, but even more for its critique of the effects of animal feed production on international trade and land grabs.  This book is for everyone who cares about how meat-eating affects our planet.

Martha Rose Shulman.  Spiralize This!  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

I did a blurb for this book but only just got my copy.  I don’t usually blurb books about cooking, but Martha is a friend and spiralized vegetables are more fun than anything.  Here’s what I wrote, all true.

Who knew that preparing vegetables could be so much fun.  The fabulous Martha Rose Shulman gives you full permission to play with your food and use a spiralizer gadget to produce the most gorgeous meals ever eaten.  Vegetables have never been so easy, beautiful, delicious, and inspiring to eat.

Andrew Fisher.  Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups.  MIT Press, 2017.

This book has a big theme, and I was happy to do a blurb for it:

If you don’t understand why anti-hunger groups hardly ever advocate for higher wages or public health nutrition measures for low-income Americans, see Andy Fisher’s analysis: they owe too much to their food-company donors.  Big Hunger is a call to action, one well worth heeding.

Here’s his interview today in Civil Eats.

Amy L. Best.  Fast Food Kids: French Fries, Lunch Lines, and Social Ties.  New York University Press, 2017.

This is an academic sociologist’s account of what and how kids eat in school, and why.  Amy Best, a professor at George Mason University, spent several years quietly observing kids eating at McDonald’s and Chipotle, and in cafeterias in a low- and high-income high school.  She also did countless interviews.

The result is a reality-based analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of school lunch programs, and how school cafeterias are used by kids as public spaces defined, as Best puts it, by racial segregation and educational and income inequalities.  She also has plenty to say about attempts to reform school meals, the role of “hypervigilant” parents, and the draw of fast food.

Of school food, she says:

Unlike family food, school food holds little if any sacred value; nor does it contain the allure of commercial foods…What is clear is that for some kids, school lunch will continue to be regarded with indifference (and in some cases open contempt).  That is the case because the food is school food.  In principle, kids find the relationship to public school objectionable, not the food itself (even though some school food really does warrant genuine complaint).  Boredom with food is also about boredom with school.

She argues for introducing critical food literacy into the school curriculum, meaning critical thinking about current food system issues.  This sounds to me like what Alice Waters has been trying to do–and is doing–through her Edible Schoolyard projects, and also like the work of the Center for Ecoliteracy.  Both call for issues related to school lunch to be part of the school’s educational mission.  Best does not mention either effort in her book, an unfortunate omission in an otherwise thoughtful account of a complicated and important topic.

Chin Jou.  Supersizing Urban America: How Inner Cities Got Fast Food with Government Help. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

I first read this book in manuscript form and have been its biggest fan ever since.  It’s terrific that it is now out and can—and should—be read by everyone.

I was delighted to do a back-cover blurb for it:

This page-turner of a book tells a virtually unknown story.  Federal policies to assist small businesses deliberately introduced fast-food outlets into low-income minority areas to the benefit of franchise owners but promoting widespread obesity in these communities.  For anyone interested in the role of government policy in food, health, and race relations, Supersizing Urban America is a must-read.

I met Chin Jou last year when I was at the University of Sydney, where she now teaches.  They are so lucky to have her there.  This is first-rate work–a model of how to make historical research totally relevant to today’s food issues.

Smith, Andrew F. Food in America: The Past, Present and Future of Food, Farming and the Family Meal. 3 vols. [Volume 1: Food and the Environment; Volume 2: Food and Health and Nutrition; Volume 3: Food and the Economy]. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2017.

The prolific and ever astonishing Andy Smith has done something breathtaking: produced a three-volume encyclopedia on the environmental, health, and economic implications of food–which he wrote in its entirety.

This is classic Andy Smith: well written, well referenced, highly accurate, and covering an enormous territory.  He introduces each volume with an historical chapter and ends them with invaluable appendices giving chronological timelines and providing landmark documents.  These last are wonderful to have in one place, although finding them is a challenge (there is no list at the front).

The work that must have gone into this is beyond comprehension.  I’ve done timelines myself and have some idea of the amount of research needed to produce one.  But he’s got three covering at least 200 years and in one case starting with the Ice Age.

If you collect food encyclopedias, as I do, you will want this one.

Here’s what’s in it:

VOLUME 1: FOOD AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Introduction 1
History 5
Controversies: Going Forward 81
Climate Change 83
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) 100
Fertilizer 114
Fish and Shellfish 126
Food Waste 143
Locavores 157
Organic 168
Pesticides 178
Sustainable Food 193
Water 205
Landmark Documents 219
Chronology of Landmark Events 345
Sources of Further Information 351
Index 361

VOLUME 2: FOOD AND HEALTH AND NUTRITION
Introduction 1
History 5
Controversies: Going Forward 77
Antibiotics 79
Diet 94
Food Additives 107
Food Insecurity 118
Food Labeling 129
Foodborne Illness 145
Obesity 159
Salt 173
Soda 184
Sugar 199
Landmark Documents 213
Chronology of Landmark Events 339
Sources of Further Information 347
Index 355
VOLUME 3: FOOD AND THE ECONOMY
Introduction 1
History 5
Controversies: Going Forward 83
Advertising and Marketing 85
Aquaculture 100
Fast Food 112
Food Corporations 126
Genetically Modified Food 141
Globalization 159
Industrial Farming 171
Labor 181
Meat 195
Megagrocery Chains 207
Landmark Documents 217
Chronology of Landmark Events 331
Sources of Further Information 339
Index 347

Martha Hodgkins, ed.  Letters to a Young Farmer: On Food, Farming, and Our Future.  Princeton Architectural Press, 2017.

This publication is from the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture.  Its executive director, Jill Isenbarger, explains what it is:

Letters to a Young Farmer, written by some of the most influential farmers, writers, leaders, and entrepreneurs of our time, offers advice, observations, gratitude, and a measure of harsh reality.  Farming is a difficult endeavor and an arduous undertaking at best, yet farming remains one of the most important, tangible, and meaningful things one can do to improve human and environmental health and community well-being.  And it is vital to our future.

The book contains 36 letters, all inspiring.  One of them is mine (you can read it here).