Never Out of Season

How Having the Food We Want When We Want It Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future

De: Rob Dunn

Narrado por: Dan Woren

The bananas we eat today aren't your parents' bananas: We eat a recognizable, consistent breakfast fruit that was standardized in the 1960s from dozens into one basic banana. But because of that, the banana we love is dangerously susceptible to a pathogen that might wipe them out.

That's the story of our food today: Modern science has brought us produce in perpetual abundance once-rare fruits are seemingly never out of season, and we breed and clone the hardiest, best-tasting varieties of the crops we rely on most. As a result, a smaller proportion of people on earth go hungry today than at any other moment in the last thousand years, and the streamlining of our food supply guarantees that the food we buy, from bananas to coffee to wheat, tastes the same every single time. Our corporate food system has nearly perfected the process of turning sunlight, water and nutrients into food.

But our crops themselves remain susceptible to the nature's fury. And nature always wins. Authoritative, urgent, and filled with fascinating heroes and villains from around the world, Never Out of Season is the story of the crops we depend on most and the scientists racing to preserve the diversity of life, in order to save our food supply, and us.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Praise for Never Out of Season

"Once again Rob Dunn shows how relevant knowledge of natural history and ecology is to the environment and to the details of our personal lives."—Edward O. Wilson, University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

"This is a compelling, beautifully written and urgently needed book for everyone interested in the past, present and future of agriculture. By weaving together science, history and biography, Dunn will transform how you think about sustainability in an increasingly complex and precarious world in which we rely on just a few industrial crops to feed more than seven billion people."—Daniel E. Lieberman, author of The Story of the Human Body

"Part cautionary tale and part call to arms, Rob Dunn's new book vividly exposes the vulnerability of our most important crops. An alarming and illuminating read."—Thor Hanson, author of The Triumph of Seeds

"Rob Dunn is master story-teller with an insatiable curiosity, an old soul, and an absolute love of science and history. In 'Never out of Season' Rob combines these qualities with his deep knowledge of natural history, evolutionary biology and human behavior. The result is a book that is both of profound importance, and impossible to put down."—Josh Tewksbury, Future Earth Research Professor, University of Colorado

"Never Out of Season is an extraordinary achievement. In it, Dunn tells the story of the most important of all human endeavors from the perspective of an ecologist. He celebrates our successes and draws lessons from our follies with equal parts humor and wit."—Colin Khoury, International Center for Tropical Agriculture

"Nature is threatened, by our simplification of the Earth. But, as Dunn makes clear in this soon to be classic page turner of a book, this simplification of nature makes us ever more rather than less dependent on nature. This is a lesson we need to heed now at a time in which our bananas, but also our wheat, our cassava and even the rubber in our tires is threatened like never before. Everyone who eats should read Never Out of Season."—Paul R. Ehrlich, author of Human Natures

"Forget about cooking books. This is the most important book you will read about food this year. Every single page has surprising facts and insights. The health of the planet depends on us eating more plants. But the monoculture of our foods that dominates global crops could have disastrous effects if we don't begin to think differently. Never Out of Season will change forever the way you look at a potato, a banana, or your chocolate bar."—Peter C. Kjærgaard, Museum Director and Professor of Evolutionary History, Natural History Museum of Denmark

Fascinating + Roadmap to Destroy Things

I really liked this book. I love to read about food and culinary history, and plant pathology too (a missed career path, apparently) so this book is within that interest spectrum.

I first saw Dunn in a documentary on Fungi species and looked him up, and that's what led me to read this book.

However, I did feel as though I had a pretty clear roadmap to how to start World War III with a few choice plane tickets and some leaves. I'll just assume those who would use this information aren't going to be reading this book. If the Internet has taught us anything it's that even freely available information is often not sought out.

Robert Dun continues to be one of the best

Robert Dun continues to be one of the best if not the best biological science communicators pressently active.

Great listen!

if you are interested in ecology, the food system, etc.,you will love this book. If you are a fan of Michael Pollan's works you will be a fan of this work by Robb Dunn.