| |
Shop
| |  |
|
Best Sellers | | Home Diet For A Dead Planet: How The Food Industry Is Killing Us | |
|  | |  | | | Diet For A Dead Planet: How The Food Industry Is Killing Us | | | | | SKU:
ACOUK_book_usedverygood_1565848640 | | In Stock | | Availability:
Usually ships in 1-2 business days | | Only 1 left in stock, order soon! | | | | | | A harrowing indictment of industrial agriculture's threat to the future of food and the environment. As mad cow disease hits hard in the United States and bird flu roils the Asian poultry markets, the issue of food safety has never been more stark. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 75 million Americans fell sick last year from the food they ate. Christopher D. Cook's riveting and timely investigation takes us beyond Fast Food Nation to explain why our entire food system is in crisis. Corporate consolidation of farms and supermarkets, high-tech drives to increase productivity, misplaced subsidies for exports, and inadequate regulation have all combined to produce a grim harvest. In these pages we encounter fruit and vegetables laminated by crop spray, slaughterhouses that transport illegal immigrants to the United States to butcher diseased meat for less than the minimum wage, and the near-extinction of American family farms. Yet, Cook argues, there is another way: Sales of organic food nearly tripled to $13 billion in 2001-2002. Farmers' markets and food cooperatives are burgeoning across the nation, and the slow food and food justice movements have become part of the mainstream. The eloquence and concision of Diet for a Dead Planet will spur the campaign still further. - Food-borne pathogens cause up to 30 million human illnesses, and as many as 9,000 deaths, in the U.S. each year
- Agriculture dumps nearly 500,000 tons of pesticides —many of them known carcinogens —on our food each year
- American farms produce more than 1.3 billion tons of animal waste annually —5 tons for every U.S. citizen
- For every dollar consumers spend on food, 81 cents goes on marketing with just 19 cents to the farmer
- Farm subsidies in the United States and European Union total nearly half a billion dollars a day
- The average food item in the United States travels 2,000 miles from farm to table
| | | |
List Price:
| $24.95 | |
Our Price:
| $11.95 | |
You Save:
| $13.00 (52%)
|
| | |
|
| | Product Details | | Author: | Christopher D. Cook | | Hardcover: | 326 pages | | Publisher: | New Press, The | | Publication Date: | November 30, 2004 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 1565848640 | | Package Length: | 7.4 inches | | Package Width: | 5.3 inches | | Package Height: | 1.4 inches | | Package Weight: | 4.65 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 11 reviews |
| |
| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 11 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 found the following review helpful:
A no-nonsense book Feb 06, 2005
By L.A. in CA
Whether he is taking on the exploitation of farm workers and poultry-plant employees; the take-over of large-scale agribusiness; farm subsidies, or an America swimming in pesticides and animal waste, Mr. Cook has clearly done his research. Extremely well documented, the book contains a number of startling statistics. Did you know that in California's Central Valley, the 1,600 dairies there generate more waste than a city of 21 million people? Did you know that in 1997, growers applied more than 985 million pounds of pesticides and herbicides to crops? Can you conceive of a farm subsidy system that has people like Scottie Pippin and Sam Donaldson receiving farm program monies?
There is a lot to ponder in this book and some excellent ideas and suggestions as to what we as consumers can do to make changes in our lives and our communities to help bring farming back to the people and out of the hands of the giant corporations.
14 of 14 found the following review helpful:
a worthy analysis of contemporary agriculture Feb 24, 2005
By J. Higgins
This is a well-written and well-researched description of the economic problems ailing contemporary American agriculture, and of the deleterious effects mammoth-scale corporate farming is having on the environment. The author is an experienced investigative reporter and an unashamed proponent of sustainable agriculture and the ever-dwindling "family" farmer representative of traditional crop cultivation in the United States. As such, Diet For A Dead Planet is a bit of a polemic and firmly in the camp of other books critical of the relationship between agricultural economics and modern food production, such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. Needless to say, Cargill and Archer-Daniels Midland executives are not going to be enamored of Diet, but any citizen concerned about the state of farming in the US, and its effects on public health and environmental well-being, would do well to read this book.
Cook organizes his topic into three sections, dealing with food quality and safety; the business and economic aspects of modern agriculture; and environmental consequences of profligate pesticide use and "factory" farm effluents. Each section contains several chapters with extensive footnotes. The chapters are obviously targeted for a general audience, and as a consequence are very readable without overwhelming the reader with statistics and technical jargon. In particular, I found the chapters on the evolving history of American agriculture offered a concise but informative account of a complex and often tumultuous subject. Other chapters on such diverse subjects as the "mad cow" crisis, the continuous deposition of toxic pesticides in water supplies, and the travails of workers in high-throughput slaughterhouse operations, are all eye-opening to one degree or another.
Cook ends the book with a admonition to the public: unless we actively choose to support organic / sustainable farm operations, our health and the welfare of the environment we live in are not going to improve. Rather than simple hectoring, however, in the last segment of the book he provides an extensive listing of whole-food organizations and advocacy groups dedicated to helping us change the way we eat and consume natural resources. There is of course an element of "better to light one candle" rhetoric here; even Cook is not so naïve as to think that tomorrow will see the US converted to any kind of enormous vegan commune. But his hope is that after reading Diet some of us will devote a bit of thought to the hows and whys of our eating habits, and in this, I think he is as realistic as any "muckraker" can be.
15 of 17 found the following review helpful:
Pigout Nation -- Wake Up!!! Nov 22, 2004
By a reader from SF
Hey people, the situation with how we get our food is not OK. I love steak and all the good eats but I am a new parent, I don't want to poison my kid. Reading this book pissed me off. Our food is full of toxins and the big companies that produce most of it are a bunch of welfare grubbing polluters. I am telling you, it's socialism for the big companies when you read the fine print of the agro bills as Cook, the author of this book, did. Sadly the little farmers have been mostly put out of business. Agro biz is not only poisoning us but are raping the American environment as well. Mr. Cook (yes, it's a funny name for a guy who writes about food) reveals some really freaky bad stuff from the heartland. How do lagoons of hog doo doo spoiling rivers strike you? Cows eating cows? Yummy. It's really crazy that the topics covered in the very well written and intensely researched book are not more of an issue. It'd be easy to get really down when looking too closely at where our vitals come from but Cook also takes a realistic look at some remedies; all of which involve producing and then eating good food. If you care about your health and about the planet read this book.
8 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Cogent Analysis Supported by Meticulous Research Dec 11, 2004
By Dana Melly
I thought I knew a lot about how dangerous our food is, but this book put all the pieces together in a way that gives me a whole new understanding of the nature and gravity of the problem. Anyone who thinks buying organic food will solve the problem needs to read this book--the whole system of subsidies, price supports and food retailing necessarily means more huge corporate farms and slaughterhouses, more pesticides, more food contamination. By humanizing and sympathizing with the players (and by writing with consummate skill), Cook manages to make agricultural history and policy highly readable, and his portrayal of the conditions in the meatpacking industry is downright gruesome. Cook shows how the interests of consumers in healthy, fresh food and the interests of small family farmers and meatpacking workers coincide. Now it's up to the rest of us to see that the nation's agricultural and food safety policies are rewritten from the bottom up.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
An Analysis of American Agricultural Mayhem Dec 04, 2006
By Mona
Christopher D. Cook's latest book Diet for a Dead Planet offers the American public with a wake up call view of the food industry today. As an investigative journalist, he gives a complete overview of the socioeconomic and political ills facing food production. He begins the supermarkets and ends with the global agricultural market.
Cook inspects the multifaceted complexities which have arisen due to cheap labor, often exploited and without healthcare. He also depicts the plight of migrant workers, processed food, and pesticides manipulatively spread over crops with the able assistance of government subsidies. The findings are thorough, compelling, and difficult to ingest at times. However, they are warranted as he introduces authorities to backup his claims.
The statistics Cook presents are real, yet harsh. Yearly, 75 million Americans are sickened by the food they eat, while an estimated 67 million birds are killed by the millions of pounds of toxic agricultural pesticides sprayed on crops. Meanwhile, farmers that remain take home only about 19 cents per food dollar spent by the average consumer (this is in comparison to 37 cents in 1980 and 47 cents in 1952) according to Cook.
Cook closely examines every branch of the food industry. In doing so, he reaches a necessary reason for change. The socioeconomic, environmental, and political injustices currently practiced weigh heavily on America's well being. Within each chapter, he goes into great detail explaining, expanding, and scoping the historical difficulties and how they adversely impact today's food industry. Beyond that conclusion, Cook explains that unless a new solution, specifically changing how food is "made", Americans will continue to spiral downward.
Cook clearly maps out the issues beleaguering and tormenting many workers in the food industry from farmers, supermarket employees to higher up executives. All problems such as exploited migrant workers, sickened Americans, corporate control, and government subsidies carry negative consequences for the future if nothing is done soon. In Cook's last chapter, he outlines a solution which focuses on changing the role of the food industry in the future. This book is powerful in its own right. However, more pages need to be devoted to envisioning that solution than one final chapter. I hope to see more works from Christopher Cook. I recommend this book as a read for anyone who eats. This is also a book for anyone who wants to learn the truth about a topic in urgent need of active change and tired of complacency.
See all 11 customer reviews on Amazon.com
| |
| |
| |  | |  |
|
Recently Viewed | You may also like ... |
