How the world eats A global food philosophy

Review by Booklist Review

British philosopher Baggini (How the World Thinks, 2018) pivots from contemplating the meaning of existence to the more mundane habit of eating. Yet he applies the same intellectually rigorous analysis, and his deep research shines on every page. In this wide-ranging book, Baggini surveys how different societies define food, from the Maasai people in East Africa who thrive on meat, milk, and the blood of their cattle to industrialized Westerners who relish fast food. Some have theorized that humanity's evolution from a hunter-gatherer society to the more sedentary business of raising grains led to poorer diets, but Baggini refutes this simplistic conclusion. Today, much of the world's food supply is monitored by national and international bodies that facilitate the distribution of surplus foods to famine-stricken lands. The desire of prosperous Western nations for cheap everyday food has unintentionally produced all sorts of effects that have generated health issues as well as ecological imbalances that threaten future generations--perils only amplified by climate change. Baggini proposes seven philosophical principles to guide worldwide food production and consumption: holism, circularity, pluralism, foodcentrism, resourcefulness, compassion, and equitability. As he promptly points out though, it's one thing to applaud these lofty principles and another to live by them.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Global food systems have grown unsustainable and must be reworked, according to this intermittently illuminating treatise. Philosopher Baggini (How the World Thinks) describes a mismanaged network of foodways, mammoth agricultural companies, and convoluted supply chains that deplete natural resources, spew greenhouse gases, and simultaneously promote hunger and obesity, thanks to overproduction and faulty distribution systems, while reinforcing economic inequality by ripping off farmers. He travels across the world to dissect well-meaning reforms, noting, for example, that the European Union's organic goals can be detrimental in countries like the Netherlands, which lacks enough cultivable land to compensate for the decreased productivity of organic farming. Instead, he offers a holistic philosophy--less a "food system" than an interconnected "food world" that shares resources and relies on country-specific solutions, from Indigenous agricultural practices to food waste reduction initiatives to lab-grown meat (though the technology is not yet functional on a mass scale). Baggini skillfully captures the intricacies of an enormously complex system and its tangled environmental, economic, and public health consequences, though his tendency to entertain and then dismiss solutions as insufficient can become tedious. Nevertheless, it's a worthwhile consideration of a pressing social issue. (Feb.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A sometimes contrarian philosophy of food and its creation and consumption. By British philosopher and journalist Baggini's account, there are food systems, and then there is the "sphere of human existence which they govern, guide and control." This sphere he calls the "food world," "an organic ecosystem, in which every part is connected to every other." Within this ecosystem, more than a quarter of the people on Earth lack nutritious food in quantities sufficient to sustain them--though, as Baggini notes, a parallel if counterintuitive development is the rise in obesity rates in about equal number, and both hunger and obesity speak to "our broken food world." In proposing repairs, Baggini is refreshingly adaptable, and though he risks courting purist rancor, he advocates a mixed diet that makes use of whatever is fresh and seasonal with whatever is available, which includes meat ("Is disgust at meat eating really a sign of more civilised society or simply a mark of one that has become detached from the realities of life and death?"). Baggini also adds wrinkles to accepted narratives: as gauged by the biodiversity of gut flora, one good measure of food health, the problem is not so much that the gatherers and hunters are better off than those settled in urban agricultural societies as that processed food, which we moderns tend to rely on, is a guaranteed detriment to a good "gut microbiome." Baggini also suggests that organic production is good but not always possible, that food governance is a matter of national interest and thus not to be left to the "free market," and that technology (including lab-grown meat) is not to be shunned in the quest to feed the world. A provocative, intelligent survey of the many complexities, moral and practical, of bringing food to our plates. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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