What I'm Reading: The End of Food

Scott Kustes on 30 Jul 2007 08:36 pm

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Table of contents for Book Reviews - 2007

I finished The End of Food: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Food Supply-And What You Can Do about It by Thomas Pawlick last night. This is a solid book that describes everything from how our food is raised to how our food is packaged. The first chapter runs through the lack of choice that we as consumers are given, limited to only a few out of thousands of varieties of tomatoes, apples, and other produce. Food growers and supermarkets select the most hearty and most profitable varieties, rather than the tastiest or most nutritious. Chapter Three runs through the cornucopia of additives, preservatives, and other crud that gets into pre-packaged foods, or as Pawlick calls it, a “Witch’s Brew”.

You’ll also get a glimpse into the factory farms that produce the beef, chicken, eggs, and pork that are found in every supermarket and will most likely walk away vowing to eat only grass-fed, sustainably raised meats and eggs. Reading his account of how egg-laying chickens are treated assures me that I won’t be eating any of the chicken that ends up in cans of soup and processed into other forms that make it impossible to see the abuse these animals endure (after they’re depleted of egg-laying potential, they are chopped up for soups and such). I stick to grass-fed beef and antibiotic/hormone-free chicken, veal, and pork and since I don’t eat much in the way of prepackaged foods, it’s easy for me to avoid stuff like canned chicken soup. It was disturbing nonetheless. Hopefully this book turns you on to farmer’s markets and community-supported agriculture, grassfed meats and chickens, and possibly even prods a few of us into planting our own gardens and raising some of our own food.

The book is only ~240 pages and is a pretty easy, but informative, read. I went through it in about 5 or 6 days of reading. The last chapter is actually just a list of resources for people wanting to plant their own gardens, get into farming, etc. I haven’t read many of the books on his list, so I can’t vouch for the quality of them, but I can say that it’s at least 10 pages of further reading.

Bonus review: Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill - I finished this book right before I started The End of Food. It’s not really a health-related book, but it is a good read into how epidemic viruses and plagues shaped history and helped lead us to where we are today. He examines both macroparasites (such as government taxes, barbarian hordes, and wars) and microparasites (measles, smallpox, etc) and how a shift in the level of stress caused by either can destroy a population. For instance, the government must be sure not to overtax their citizens so as to make it worthwhile for the citizens to keep working and growing the population. Similarly, what works today from a macroparasitic level may not work tomorrow when smallpox is ravaging through a country. The writing is dry, but I found the subject matter quite interesting.

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Tags: factory farming, McNeill, Pawlick, Plagues and Peoples, The End of Food

4 Responses to “What I’m Reading: The End of Food”

Anna in San Diego, CA on 31 Jul 2007 at 1:14 pm #

Hi Scott,

Thanks for reviewing this book. Does it go beyond expounding on the problems and suggest solutions (local, seasonal foods, farmers markets, pastured meats and poultry, etc.)? Some books I like describe the problems very well, but fall short on constructive actions that people can take to avoid/not support/change the conventional food system.

Scott Kustes on 01 Aug 2007 at 6:36 am #

Hi Anna,

He does a pretty good job of suggesting solutions. There are 5 pages of suggested reading on gardening and sustainable farming. He doesn’t touch much on how to find grass-fed meats, but he does advocate farmer’s markets and getting to know your local growers. Pawlick also talks about how people used to raise their own animals, which is probably out for most of us. So in terms of how well he describes getting produce from non-commercial sources, I’d give him an A. As for meats, probably more like a B-.

Cheers
Scott

Anonymous on 03 Aug 2007 at 9:12 pm #

I for one am planning to plant an organic square foot garden in my yard this fall. I live in south FL where the winter is perfect for growing vegetables. I can’t wait! Now I look at my landscaping and think to myself, “I could’ve planted blueberry bushes instead of ornamentals”. I look around my neighborhood and realize that most of us could grow a very respectable amount of fresh food in our own yards, rather than buy everything at the supermarket, if only we would. If I ever get my house in the country, there will be chickens and ducks for eggs and a goat or two for dairy products, too. I can’t imagine many things more satisfying than grocery shopping in your own back yard.

Scott Kustes on 04 Aug 2007 at 7:17 am #

I want to turn a good portion of my backyard into a garden too. Up here in Kentucky, I’ll not have much of any growing in winter. Maybe some squash or other roots, but I haven’t really looked into winter growing. I didn’t get around to planting anything this year, but I, like you, would love to live somewhere that I could raise plenty of fruits and vegetables and maybe a few animals. I doubt I’ll ever be able to get fully away from purchasing some food (mainly because I’m not interested in becoming a full-time farmer), but I would like to be able to grow some of my own stuff.

If everyone turned their yards into gardens, the supermarkets would have to shut down their produce sections. Unfortunately, we’d also affect the local farmers. Grass is useless anyway….it grows, so we cut it. If it doesn’t grow, we water it so that it does, so that we can cut it again. Doesn’t make much sense to me.