The End of Food

compared with michael pollan, whose books are enthralling, this is a bit dry. There's an interesting bit about the rise of the global food conglomerates like nestle, but it goes downhill. I'd skip it and get the pollan books.

I too am concerned with what the industrial food system is doing to our health, our society and my own individual ability to choose exactly what I want to eat. This author however is more agenda driven then objectively driven.

One of the more interesting aspects of the real-food community is its overlap between people of differing ideologies. Go to a raw milk pick-up point and you'll meet old hippies and homeschooling Christian families all chatting and sharing in their passion for the natural, healthy way of life.

This author wouldn't enjoy such a crowd. He's subjective, dogmatic and terribly wrong on many details. It's still a readable book because he is taking on the Monsantos and Walmarts of the world, but I cringe to think of anyone that might accidentally pick this book up as their introduction to the subject as a whole.

For the newcomer to this larger subject I would suggest the obvious "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan and of course Wendell Berry and Joel Salatin both. Really, read both, not just one of them.

The story itself is well done and definitely give you something to think about. You may not agree with all or any of the authors conclusion but it does get one think about how food is produced and if this is sustainable. I did not think it was very scientific which works to the books advantage but also its disadvantage. It works because it is easy to listen to and gets you thinking. It does not work because I would like to know about some of his data sources for reliability. This is not to say I think he lied or even over exaggerated but I always like to understand the context of a claim.

The actual recording of this book was good EXCEPT for all the pauses. The reader would be in mid sentence and then you get a pause. Also between chapters the reader sounded different so for a moment I would think something happened in the down load. These issues do not take away from the book but it is sloppy editing and are rather annoying.

While it may be already too late, we need to look more and more at getting to sustainability and nutrition. It really explains a lot of our food history.

Gives me a new perception of just buying everyday produce.

Roberts' leftist views obscure the informational value of this book.The blah blah blah of corporate greed at the root of all evil begins to grate. While Roberts details how modern agribusiness has been contemporaneous with humans who are larger,longer lived, healthier while alive, and more numerous than can be truly grasped he carefully cultures the Marxist proposition he planted in THE END OF OIL that true human felicity cannot really be achieved through the economic structures of capitalism.