The frightening truth about the modern food system.
The bestselling author of The End of Oil turns his attention to food and finds that the system we’ve entrusted with meeting one of our most basic needs is dramatically failing us. With his trademark comprehensive global approach, Paul Roberts investigates the startling truth about the modern food system: the way we make food, market and consume it, and even think about it is no longer compatible or safe for the billions of consumers the system was built to serve. The emergence of large-scale and efficient food production changed forever our relationship with food and ultimately left a vulnerable and paradoxical system in place. Over 1.1 billion people worldwide are “over-nourished,” according to the World Health Organization, and are at risk of obesity-related illness, while roughly as many people are starving. Meanwhile the natural systems all food is dependent upon have been irreparably damaged by chemicals and destructive farming techniques; the pressures of low-cost food production court contamination and disease; and big food consumers, such as China and India, are already planning for tightened global food supplies, making it clear that the era of superabundance is behind us.
Vivid descriptions, lucid explanations, and fresh thinking make The End of Food uniquely able to offer a new, accessible way to understand the vulnerable miracle of the modern food economy. Roberts presents clear, stark visions of the future and helps us prepare to make the decisions---personal and global---we must make to survive the demise of food production as we know it.
Paul Roberts critiques the current system of food production, both domestic and international, and it is a scary world. Roberts shows how seemingly disparate problems--first-world obesity, third-world hunger, food-borne pathogens, rising fuel costs, pollution, and climate change--are connected and are logical responses to an unsustainable large-scale, hyperefficient food system. William Dufris employs an energetic and lively manner to hold the listener's interest while maintaining a note of matter-of-factness that adds to the grimness and peril. He is adept at delivering the mix of seriousness and astonishment clearly intended by Roberts. Dufris's pacing is also entirely appropriate for material that is often complex. A faster pace could leave the listener behind; a slower one could dull the impact of the material. A.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
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Paul Roberts critiques the current system of food production, both domestic and international, and it is a scary world. Roberts shows how seemingly disparate problems--first-world obesity, third-world hunger, food-borne pathogens, rising fuel costs, pollution, and climate change--are connected and are logical responses to an unsustainable large-scale, hyperefficient food system. William Dufris employs an energetic and lively manner to hold the listener's interest while maintaining a note of matter-of-factness that adds to the grimness and peril. He is adept at delivering the mix of seriousness and astonishment clearly intended by Roberts. Dufris's pacing is also entirely appropriate for material that is often complex. A faster pace could leave the listener behind; a slower one could dull the impact of the material. A.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
