The End of Food
by Paul Roberts
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Book Summary Information
Author: Paul RobertsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-06
ISBN: 0547085974
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Mariner Books
Book Reviews of The End of Food
Book Review: A Brilliant Concise Look at Our Food Past, Present, and Future
Summary: 4 Stars
The Western supermarket today is a testament to the power and efficiency of capitalism and technology. Even the Roman emperors did not have access to the amazing variety of fresh produce available, and thanks to agribusiness, bio-engineering, and globalization this produce is cheap enough even for commoners. And that's exactly the problem, as Paul Roberts explains in his excellent book "The End of Food." Food is so cheap today because of "externalities," an economics term referring to the costs not factored into the retail price. At an individual health level the "externalities" of food are obesity and cancer. At a social level the costs are pollution, soil erosion and desertification, inequality, spiraling unsustainable population growth, and so on. Externalities may be hidden long-term abstract costs, but someone has to pay them sooner or later.
Mr. Roberts' writing is academic and clunky at times, and his anecdotes -- which are meant to burnish his journalism credentials -- are unnecessary. But his explanations and analysis are superb, and paint a horrifying and all too accurate picture of our food past, present, and future.
In Mr. Roberts' story, evolution has designed our bodies to calibrate perfectly the amount and the type of food we need in our bodies. Our bodies mainly subsist on fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds because those were readily available throughout most of our evolutionary history. But meat has made us human: it was the proteins that permitted our brains to grow, and the fat that gave us time to pursue other activities than just hunting and gathering. No wonder then that we humans crave fat, sugar, and salt. Or, in Mr. Roberts' words, we humans were designed to seek the most calories for the least work. That was fine in a world of scarcity but fast forward to the twentieth century, and these cravings become a fundamental weakness and grave threat.
Many factors made meat and food plentiful. There was globalization so that countries who had a protein surplus (America) could export to countries with a protein deficit (Europe). The discovery of growth hormones and antibiotics made animals much bigger. The Green Revolution and the discovery of fertilizer were important breakthroughs. And then there was the consolidation of the farming into agribusiness, which could leverage economies of scale to bring the most meat at the cheapest price to the consumers. Finally, there was the demand from busy consumers in an industrial economy for fast cheap filling food.
Mr. Roberts certainly is not diplomatic about the consequences of these trends. Consumers are fatter and unhealthier than ever, prone to cancer and heart disease. And the world has become unsustainable. Arable land is over-used yet the human population continues to grow. More alarmingly, this food economy is fragile, monolithic, and all inter-connected. That means viruses can easily and quickly spread through this food economy, and investigators would have tremendous difficulty locating the source and thus halting the spread.
Our food future is either a famine or a pandemic that will kill tens of millions, according to Mr. Roberts. And right now nothing can be done because agribusiness has co-opted our political system to the point where transgenic food doesn't have to be labeled as such. But more important consumers are too much addicted to the additives and preservatives that make food so tasty and so cheap yet so poisonous (organic food is for high-end consumers). When it comes to food and eating, our legacy is now our curse.
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