Stuffed and Starved
The Hidden Battle for the World Food System
Raj Patel
How can starving people also be obese?
Why does everything have soy in it?
How do petrochemicals and biofuels control the price of food?
It's a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before (800 million) while there are also more people overweight (1 billion).
To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It took him from the colossal supermarkets of California to India's wrecked paddy-fields and Africa's bankrupt coffee farms, while along the way he ate genetically engineered soy beans and dodged flying objects in the protestor–packed streets of South Korea.
What he found was shocking, from the false choices given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer suicides, and real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa.
Yet he also found great cause for hope—in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable and joyful food system. Going beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.
PRESS AND REVIEWS
“One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice.”
—Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine
"Compelling. At first glance, Raj is another depressing voice in the chorus. But in traveling the world researching the book, he also found hope in international social movements working to create more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food systems."
—Mark Bittman, New York Times Link
"For anyone attempting to make sense of the world food crisis, or understand the links between U.S. farm policy and the ability of the world's poor to feed themselves, Stuffed and Starved is indispensable."
—Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma
"A book full of insight, that makes an important contribution to understanding that the politics of food is not a narrow matter of shopping, ethical or otherwise."
—Guardian Link
"Patel's broad treatment helps the layman connect the dots, as well as hear the voices of those who occupy the lower rungs of the global food chain."
—Time Magazine Link
"A blistering indictment of the policies of multinational agribusiness conglomerates and charges that their drive for profit at any cost has left the developing world starving while wealthy countries like the United States are experiencing epidemic obesity rates and related health problems."
—Newsweek Link
"I hope this book will be remembered as long as Small is Beautiful has and gain as much influence. Patel has written what we can only hope will be an incredibly influential critique of our food systems..."
—Publishing News
Review
—Washington Post Link
Interview
—The Nation Link
Profile
—San Francisco Chronicle Link
Raj Patel quoted on the Gates Foundation.
—The New York Times Magazine Link
Interview
—NPR's Weekend Edition Link
"For Patel, it is a short step from Western consumers 'engorged and intoxicated' with cheap processed food to Mexican and Indian farmers committing suicide because they can’t make a living. The 'food industry’s pabulum' makes us all cogs in an evil machine."
—The New Yorker Link
Michael Pollan's summer reading: "I'm hoping this new book will help me make sense of the world food crisis and how it might be eased."
—Wall Street Journal Link
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Stuffed and Starved
Raj Patel
Current Events / Environmental Studies
398 pages / paperback
$19.95 US
ISBN-13: 978-1-933633-49-7
Published: May 2008
