Stuffed And Starved: Markets, Power And The Hidden Battle For The World Food System by Raj Patel

Aug 16, 2008 angela rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: politics, non-fiction, favorites

Saying: READ THIS BOOK! is the most logical place to begin this review. Seriously. Read it.

This is an incredibly nuanced look at the global food market. He addresses everything from rural poverty, failure, and farmer suicide (in the Global North and Global South) to the bottlenecks in our global food chain (mostly at the distributor and retailer level, where distributors are increasingly the same people as the retailers) to supermarkets to worker's rights and movements to obesity to monoculture...more Saying: READ THIS BOOK! is the most logical place to begin this review. Seriously. Read it.

This is an incredibly nuanced look at the global food market. He addresses everything from rural poverty, failure, and farmer suicide (in the Global North and Global South) to the bottlenecks in our global food chain (mostly at the distributor and retailer level, where distributors are increasingly the same people as the retailers) to supermarkets to worker's rights and movements to obesity to monoculture farming.

It sounds all pretty routine, but the way he addresses them are incredibly nuanced and compelling. For instance, he addresses the rise of supermarkets and megastores in the Global South. On the one hand, they spell ruin for local stores and markets. But on the other hand, in rural South Africa it means convenience for poor women who will no longer have the time-consuming (and apparently unpleasant) task of traditionally preparing corn by hand and instead can buy it. Given these two options, women opt for the supermarket when they really wish for the means to process (mill?) the corn with machinery available to them.

Also, for instance, in addressing obesity his analysis goes beyond what we popularly read about "poor food choices" and "lazy people", etc. Instead, he takes aim at the ways in which the global food system is what reduces individual choice through a global system of low wages forcing people to work two jobs, double-shifts, overtime, etc. and rely on convenience foods, buy the cheapest foods, and the fact that supermarkets are less likely to locate in poor neighbourhoods and that when they do the food they stock are more likely to be those tied to obesity. I can't explain his entire argument here but rest assured, this is not a fatphobic analysis. In fact, he takes aim at bulimia and anorexia and gives a nod to the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.

He offers a range of examples for making change but is not blindly supportive of even the more positive choices we have. He criticizes the organic farming in so far as it's a primarily corporate affair and leads to monoculture, conventional industrial, low-wage farming practices, and food still being transporting over long distances. He is critical of fair trade practices supporting all of the above and additionally possibly only have the effect of throwing a "few extra pennies" at fair trade farmers without changing the global food market system and principally only allows farmers to hang on "a little longer". And he offers limited criticisms of Community Supported Agriculture Programs (CSAs), the kind that typically deliver a "basket" of fruits and vegetables coming from local farms to those who subscribe to the service. He finds examples of CSAs (I think he uses a mostly Californian examples) that tragically underpay undocumented workers who have no job security and often unsafe or illegal work conditions such as 12 hour days with minimal breaks.

He doesn't argue that we shouldn't support organics, Fair Trade practices (he often purchases fair trade, himself) or CSAs (he's a huge supporter of CSAs as a model for change throughout his book) but instead gives what I think is a fair critique of all of these things. And these things that need to be discussed or else the problems cannot be addressed.

The only critique I have about this book is that while he pays a great deal of attention to gender and women's rights/women's roles when it comes to production of food (and shows some amazing examples of how women can be further empowered through new farming practices and new food market models), I think he could stand to pay more attention in his discussion of the growing reliance on convenience foods to the fact that women primarily carry the multiple burdens of working, buying the food, preparing the food (in addition to caring for children) alone (or quite unequally). And for there to be a shift to more fresh ingredients, it will require more than "families" (a word that he uses frequently, without much discussion of what that means in practice) wanting to switch. It will require a shift in gender roles.

I have a secondary critique. He very briefly addresses industrial meat practices and the way they hurt individuals and the environment (never mind the animals) and he gives only a small mention and a footnote to the idea that perhaps vegetarianism (or greatly reduced consumption of meat) might also greatly improve our lot when it comes to global food markets, environmental resources, and food security. But given that he probably wants this book to remain accessible to the great number of people who cannot imagine being vegetarian (or don't buy the arguments), I can understand (but not quite forgive) this omission.

I'll end the same way I began this review. READ IT. Buy it. Visit the website (www.stuffedandstarved.org.(less)

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May 01, 2009 Ian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: muck-raking, non-fiction, policy, food

When I first saw this book in our local bookstore, I was interested in its purported claim to trace the intricacies in the power structure surrounding global food production/distribution. As a broad primer about the different ways in which campesinos growing soy in Brazil, Koreans fighting against the WTO, rural South Africans growing Bt cotton, etc. relate to the Global North's food acquisition and lack of satisfactory distribution, Stuffed generally succeeds. There is no shortage of vignettes...more

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Feb 08, 2009 Mary rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, garden-and-food

I really wanted to like this book! I really wanted to read it to the last page without skimming. The subject matter is fascinating to me--the food politics of the US and the rest of the world. It seem that Patel and I have a lot of similar opinions about many things, such as the WTO, NAFTA, and the UN. However, we do not agree on why we do not like them. However, what he suggests to do about it is nearly the opposite of what I would do, policy-wise. I was also a bit turned off by the extent of h...more

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Feb 09, 2009 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book differs from other food politics books I've read in that it addresses the issues from a much more global perspective. I learned a lot about peasant/farmer movements, and really found that first part of the book pretty engaging. Things start to fall apart, however, when Patel starts to move into urban US issues, health issues, slow food movement, etc. These parts of the book aren't very well developed, and by the end I started to wonder if the author didn't feel like he had to have an o...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Greening USiena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: food

La produzione di cibo, la regolamentazione del mercato internazionale dei prodotti agro-alimentari, i modelli di consumo sono temi intrinsecamente legati alle questioni ambientali e sociali del nostro secolo. Secondo le parole dell'autore, 'porre fine alla fame non è semplicemente una questione di far crescere più cibo, ma di coltivare la democrazia', ed infatti oggi più di 800 milioni di persone soffrono la fame nonostante si produca più cibo che in qualsiasi epoca del passato. Una lettura fond...more

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Nov 04, 2011 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting book about the global food system, corporate agribusiness giants, and how all this has shaped the things we eat every day (in really fundamental ways). Did you know that there are tons of species of apples that you will never get to eat, just because they don't grow well, or preserve well, or have tough enough skins, or generally have attributes that make them ideal for storing, preserving, and shipping long distances? There were lots of interesting factoids like this in the boo...more Very interesting book about the global food system, corporate agribusiness giants, and how all this has shaped the things we eat every day (in really fundamental ways). Did you know that there are tons of species of apples that you will never get to eat, just because they don't grow well, or preserve well, or have tough enough skins, or generally have attributes that make them ideal for storing, preserving, and shipping long distances? There were lots of interesting factoids like this in the book.

Like most books of this nature (political) I take everything with a huge grain of salt (even though I am fairly left-leaning myself, I don't want to get suckered by someone who's just providing evidence to support only the points he wants to make). But having said that, I have read enough and seen enough documentaries (this reminded me of Food, Inc. the whole time) that it all seemed plausible to me. Plus, the book seemed incredibly well-researched (the bibliography is enormous - I don't think this guy has had time to do anything else for the last 10 years maybe!). Anyway, the gist is that huge agribusiness corporations have vastly changed what we all grow and eat. I mean, what farmer grew SOLELY soybeans back in the day (prior to WWII)? WHY do we subsidize soybeans and corn when we don't NEED so much soybean and corn, and in fact have to manufacture uses for them including feeding them to our livestock, who aren't supposed to eat soybeans and corn? The whole system is so ridiculous now... it's truly amazing it ever got to be this way and that it remains this way. He did point out that smaller, rural states have an advantage because they have 2 senators just like huge states, so that's part of the answer to why farm subsidies remain.

Did you know that the livestock industry produces more CO2 in the atmosphere than transportation? Yes that's right - all our anxiety over cars and driving and our mileage, and nobody ever mentions that the livestock industry is a worse offender.

I only scratched the surface--there is a LOT of interesting info in this book--but I am trying not to make this too long. I liked it. It really makes you think, and some of the background and history behind the global food system is truly astounding. If you have any interest, this is a good one.

Also, he used a quote from Monty Python's Life of Brian as a chapter heading ("you're all individuals!" "yes, we're all individuals!" "I'm not" "Shhhh!"). That made me want to give it an extra half-star if it were possible. :-)(less)

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May 12, 2010 Justin rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book makes a splendid introductory text to the evils of the modern food system. I can say that because it was my introduction and I feel well introduced. You may have suspected that there was something rotten about the modern alimentary chain and Raj Patel will tell you exactly what. It starts with the nifty premise that the world’s overfed and underfed have something in common: they’re both getting played by multinational food interests. It explores that connection from the top of the supp...more

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Nov 29, 2011 Adrien Lawyer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Raj Patel tackles a daunting, sprawling subject in taking on the world's food systems, but he manages the job with intelligence, humor and grace. A talented writer, Mr. Patel brings dismaying statistics to life sanguinely, like the high suicide rate among Indian farmers in the last decades. He surgically deconstructs many of the biggest problems facing our time in regard to food production, supply, distribution and consumption, and rather than leave us on the shore of despair, proceeds to report...more

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Oct 01, 2008 Martinxo rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned, sustainability-peak-oil

Didn't enjoy (odd word to use I know) this as much as I thought and ended up flipping quickly through the last two thirds.

Patel tells me what I already know in grinding, depressing detail. But don't let that put you off, if you know little or nothing about the global food situtation then read this book, get a little depressed...then act.

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May 17, 2012 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: food-studies

This book is included on many a food studies/food system reading list, so I thought I'd finally thumb through it. It's written incredibly accessibly and is well organized. I truly lust after his chapter transitions.

While I was already familiar with some of the content, I really enjoyed chapter 3 on NAFTA's contribution to an unsteady food system and my favorite section is chapter 8 on supermarkets and how they've changed the way people eat in countries and regions across the globe.

All in all, i...more

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Dec 06, 2010 Billy rated it 5 of 5 stars

An absolutely fantastic, well-researched, and very readable book about the global food system. Raj Patel obviously has a strong bias against the policies of the WTO, international food distributors, and super stores like Wal-Mart, but his arguments against them seem very well founded. This book really opened my eyes to the systemic problems that help to keep farmers poor and suicidal, food distributors rich, and consumers overweight and obese. He also points to a number of possible solutions, in...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Shana rated it 2 of 5 stars

Finished Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel the other night. I’d like to say that I read it word for word, but unfortunately there were parts that I just couldn’t get through and ended up skimming. It’s a very informative book and a comprehensive look at our world food system. I think it’s very “in” to discuss and write about food right now, but Patel doesn’t sugarcoat. Without reading this, I would have never known about the rates of farmer suicides....more

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Dec 18, 2008 Nadia rated it 3 of 5 stars

okay, so i actually lost this book somewhere between the airport and work (i know i had it on the train, but now i can't find it), and i was about 30 pgs from the end... so technically, i haven't finished this, but i'm not gonna buy it again. this was a tough read, especially in the beginning. though the author tries to break it into sections, because it isn't chronological, sometimes it's easy to get lost... but the facts are incredibly interesting, despite being dry. at times this reads like a...more

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Mar 22, 2009 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’ve been aware of and fascinated by a modern paradox for a while. For the first time in human history, a growing number of people are obese and suffering a form of malnutrition. By eating a diet composed mostly of empty calories, people will gain weight but still practically starve. Raj Patel explores this phenomenon in Stuffed and Starved. Patel is a British Indian educated at the London School of Economics and as his blurb put it, has been tear gassed on four continents.

There are more people...more I’ve been aware of and fascinated by a modern paradox for a while. For the first time in human history, a growing number of people are obese and suffering a form of malnutrition. By eating a diet composed mostly of empty calories, people will gain weight but still practically starve. Raj Patel explores this phenomenon in Stuffed and Starved. Patel is a British Indian educated at the London School of Economics and as his blurb put it, has been tear gassed on four continents.

There are more people who are starving than ever before; there are also more people who are overweight than at any time in history. While the problem is evident throughout North America, Patel offers evidence that it is a world-wide phenomenon. Obesity is growing in impoverished communities even in places like India and Brazil, where hunger and obesity make a dangerous combination.

Farm failures and the related suicides coincide with a food system that denies both producers and consumers. At heart is the commoditization of food. Patel identifies the bottlenecks that are controlled by monopolies. A handful of processors strip food of its nutrients, and a small number of retailers deliver those products. Patel goes beyond Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food to explain why the decline in food quality and nutrient density is a global phenomenon, and is not limited to rich countries.

Patel inscribed my copy, ‘[t:]o . . . a fellow professional exile.’ He is a very intelligent, witty, and well-informed writer who can be very entertaining. His breathless manic speaking style does not hold up as well on the printed page. The book is definitely worth a read, even if it drags in spots. A number of familiar stories and quotes are recycled that could be better handled as footnotes. The graphs are not as well annotated and could be better presented. In some cases the newest data do not seem that recent.

Patel identifies ten points needed to regain control over the food system, also known as food sovereignty. There are as many ideas of what constitutes food sovereignty as commenters, but Patel offers one of the clearest explanations of both what it is and why it is needed in his conclusion. Agree or disagree with his analysis of organic food, fair trade, and food sovereignty, he offers a clear program and a solid case why it needs to be carried out, for our health and the health of the world.
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Oct 04, 2012 Brenton rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is another one of those books that I had expected to really like, only to find it fairly disappointing.

For starters, I really disliked Patel's citation style. Maybe it's a British thing, but he only used endnotes, even for somewhat useful asides. So I was never sure whether a reference note would send me to some interesting tidbit or just a citation. And those were bad, too, just an author name and year. So then you'd probably have to hunt through his references section to figure out what t...more This is another one of those books that I had expected to really like, only to find it fairly disappointing.

For starters, I really disliked Patel's citation style. Maybe it's a British thing, but he only used endnotes, even for somewhat useful asides. So I was never sure whether a reference note would send me to some interesting tidbit or just a citation. And those were bad, too, just an author name and year. So then you'd probably have to hunt through his references section to figure out what the material cited was. It felt like a style for a dissertation, not a book that you're trying to appeal to a broad audience with.

Patel's basic thesis is that the ills of our current food system - the fact that so many are starved, especially the rural poor and farmers, while others are stuffed - are a political problem, not a technical one. In the global market, the route between producers and consumers goes through a bottleneck of a very small number of middlemen (processors and the like) who can dominate the market. As such, technology-led "green revolutions" only serve to make farmers in the global South more dependent on large agricultural and chemical firms, since they have no market power to increase their share of food profits. It's a compelling argument that points toward political solutions that so far have been precluded from the public conversation, rather than largely cosmetic changes that continue to support the current system ("industrial organic," "corporate philanthropy," "Fair Trade").

Patel loses me, though, when he goes into screeds on far-left radical equality issues. These are the kinds of arguments that assume a completely idealized world and human nature, or preach a form of "illiberal egalitarianism" that gives a good talk about being inclusive while actively alienating middle-of-the-roaders. It just got way too ranty for my tastes, really.

I think if you are looking for an intelligent read about the food system, you could probably find better. Patel has a much broader, international scope than other similar books I've read, but I don't think he'd be very engaging for someone who wasn't a die-hard food politics nerd.(less)

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Dec 11, 2010 Harrison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: justice, favorites

The public understanding of where our food comes from is deeply misinformed, rooted more in a pastoral myth than in reality. The real story of our supermarket shelves is complex, but in Stuffed and Starved Raj Patel expertly guides the reader through the systems of modern food production to reveal the profound injustice ingrained in their structure.

We enter this narrative with stories of farmer suicides, a rising trend in the global south as more and more farmers find themselves in inescapable d...more The public understanding of where our food comes from is deeply misinformed, rooted more in a pastoral myth than in reality. The real story of our supermarket shelves is complex, but in Stuffed and Starved Raj Patel expertly guides the reader through the systems of modern food production to reveal the profound injustice ingrained in their structure.

We enter this narrative with stories of farmer suicides, a rising trend in the global south as more and more farmers find themselves in inescapable debt to international agrochemical corporations and forced off the land that has been in their families for generations, an unbearable dishonor. To understand why families that were able to sustain themselves and their communities from the richness of the land for thousands of years are now finding themselves in such dire straights, we must widen our perception to look at the global economy and see the wider influence of debt in this destruction of local food systems.

The large national debts of the global south put these countries at the mercy of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund who leverage their power to force these countries to remove import taxes that protect local food producers. As a result, local markets become flooded with surplus crops from the United States that are produced under huge subsidies. Undercut by these crops, local farmers find themselves no longer able to make a living by feeding their communities. Instead, their only recourse is to produce exportable cash crops like corn, cotton, and soy which, despite their name, yield low returns. Additionally, as these farmers are forced to cater to the demands of international crop distributers rather than the needs of their own communities, farmers are pressured into growing monoculture crops with unsustainable practices just to survive.

Whereas in local food production, prices vary with perceptible community supply and demand, the prices fetched by cash crops vary wildly and inexplicable with the fluctuations of the global market based on speculation and international trade agreements. These fluctuations quickly bankrupt small scale farmers. In this environment, only industrial operations can survive. As the profits from these industrial operations are siphoned to tax havens, communities are left bankrupted, unable to afford even the heavily subsidized corn-syrup based products available to them.

Thus we are left with the great paradox of our modern world: surrounded by incredibly fertile land, thousands of people starve to death every day.

Against this structural violence, farmers around the world have begun to organize themselves under the banner of la Via Campesina, the Peasant Way. The rallying cry of this group is food sovereignty, which is their right to own the land that they work, to have access to local markets, and to not by abusively undercut by heavily subsidized crop surpluses. By protecting local food markets, these groups seek to stabilize the economies of the global south so that meaningful development is possible. We can stand in solidarity with these groups by forcing our government to abandon abusive free trade agreements and subsidies to industrial agribusiness. In this way, we can start to shift the balance of power in the food system away from international agribusiness and back toward food producers and consumers.

For anyone that buys fair trade coffee or prefers organic produce, this book is a must read. After all, it is only when our food choices are informed that they can be meaningful.(less)

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Dec 06, 2008 Dawnbg rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was really excited to read this book and had to wait months to get it from the library. I had seen the author interviewed on several TV programs & he was great.
In short, this book is WAYYY too long.I've never thought about the book editor before, but while the info is good, it is repeated too much.If it was half the length it would be a much more powerful book.The book is about the global food system, and how government policy and large corporations have changed the way we eat, grow food...more

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Jul 19, 2009 Nathaniel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Patel's book contains some alarming and resonant chapter full of specific information about community-level outrages perpetrated in a calculating and anonymous way by big players in the food industry. Spotlighting the trauma caused by the food system is Patel's strength; exploring its history and discussing its alternatives, somewhat less so. The first 80 pages are a clear, graph-spattered introduction to the tactics that agricultural giants and powerful economies use to ensure that their produc...more Patel's book contains some alarming and resonant chapter full of specific information about community-level outrages perpetrated in a calculating and anonymous way by big players in the food industry. Spotlighting the trauma caused by the food system is Patel's strength; exploring its history and discussing its alternatives, somewhat less so. The first 80 pages are a clear, graph-spattered introduction to the tactics that agricultural giants and powerful economies use to ensure that their products sell for as much money as possible while their own food and material needs are taken care of for bottom dollar.

Patel's discussions of GM crops, tariff ad subsidy manipulation and food aid help to clarify why Indian farmers kill themselves, why the WTO is protested so violently by many of the world's poorest farmers and why many communities face illusory and unhealthy food choices. But following chapters lose steam as Patel painstakingly details the psychology behind supermarket layout and attempts to offer the slow food movement as a spiritual ad philosophical beacon.

The final chapter, "Chosen by Bunnies" (most of the chapters have lousy names and rubbishy epigrams abound) regains some of the books earlier power but on an unlikely subject. Patel's treatment of obesity suggests that "we might want to consider poor diets as a symptom of a systemic lack of control over our spaces and lives" rather than swallow offensive and inaccurate explanations brought about by "the politics and economics of blame." I will be reserving some of my knee-jerk harsh criticisms of very fat people because of this chapter.

Readers of a more conservative bent may chafe at Patel's tone or scoff at his predictable exemplars (Kerala, local food co-ops); but there's a solid fifty plus pages of notes and references underscoring Patel's scholarship and he seems thorough enough to respect. In all, the book is a decent overview/starter course on the food-related causes most dear to progressive thinkers. I suspect most readers who reach the end of "Stuffed and Starved" will being reforming at least some of their judgments about diet, hunger, obesity and even justice. (less)

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Jan 30, 2011 sdw rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: environment, environmental-justice, food-justice, non-fiction

Compared to many popular books on contemporary food politics, Patel uses a global perspectives to examine the choices that are made for us about food. His book is arranged to move from the rural farmers who produce the world’s food to the customers at the check-out stand. Yet his analysis is thoroughly-grounded in a producer oriented framework. The story of food production, Patel argues, is not one about the choices we make about food, but the choices about food that are made for us. The final c...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Sylvie Fox rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pretty, pretty, good. (Sorry LD). This was an excellent first person essay style book about the horrors industrialized food have visited upon us. From the obesity and illness epidemic in the 'Global North' to the farmer suicides and destruction of subsistence farming in the 'Global South,' Patel illustrates the path of destruction corporate food has wrought. This book is not definitive, but is a good manifesto. It would surely urge the reader to change their habits and those of others within the...more

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Dec 22, 2011 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, other-nonfiction

I read this hoping to get a better grasp of the world food system and so be able to make better personal choices when it comes to food. This was not a good place to start. Patel has clearly done an impressive amount of research, but his presentation is painfully dry and jumps all over. I feel like I have been exposed to an overwhelming quantity of facts, but still don't have any sense of how they really fit together. And given how cherry-picked his presentation of the US immigration system was,...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Kriegslok rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At some point in his book Patel quotes Friedmen who commented that the “Hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist”. Most of this book is about exposing the lie of the market, as it is commonly supposed to be, and revealing the central role of the often not so hidden, if silken, fist. By looking at each stage of the chain of the production of our food and providing thorough case studies Patel paints a rather depressing picture of an industry that is not only bad for the st...more At some point in his book Patel quotes Friedmen who commented that the “Hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist”. Most of this book is about exposing the lie of the market, as it is commonly supposed to be, and revealing the central role of the often not so hidden, if silken, fist. By looking at each stage of the chain of the production of our food and providing thorough case studies Patel paints a rather depressing picture of an industry that is not only bad for the struggling producer and environment but for the consumer for whom “they” would have you believe they are working to get good food at the best prices. It probably does not take Patel to tell most of the people who read this book that there is something wrong with the way we eat. The people who perhaps should read this book won't and the people who perhaps shouldn't will and most will cynically do their best to alleviate any harm the book may do to their interests. That said it is a valuable work and one that draws together and reveals the food industry for the world system that it is. The role of corporate interests in bulldozing their way is clearly demonstrated by the closeness with which they have worked with the IMF, WTO and the way these organisation emerged on the back of post-war food distribution systems, primarily in the USA, to cope with a food production glut. Patel himself has worked for the World Bank and WTO and knows what he is talking about. He also looks at the struggle of the powerless to work in their own interests nationally and internationally against incredible odds and at a huge personal and physical cost. He documents the suicides of farmers broken by debt and records the hidden suffering of women’s labour that goes largely unseen and is cheaply rewarded. He also reiterates the important point that people do not starve to death because there is no food, they die because they cannot afford to buy the food they need to survive.

While much of the book concentrates on what is wrong there are glimpses of hope and the Landless Rural Workers Movement in Brasil which has met with some success is covered in detail being one of the bigger and more successful grass-roots movements that has survived its formative years and clung to its principles while moving with the times. Patel also looks at India where the contrast between town and country could not be much greater or perhaps more potentially explosive. What is clear in all cases is the diposability of those who have traditionally worked the land – NAFTA forced 1.3 million Mexicans off their land. In the same way that the peasants were thrown off their land in Britain in one of the first serious modernisations of agricultural production and relations so the pattern is repeated globally today as capital continues its relentless expansion and expropriation of the commons and virgin territory in the search of profit. As long as profit and personal financial reward remain the strongest global motivator any change seems unlikely. As Patel notes “The creative destruction of modern capital, almost by definition, crushes those least able to protect themselves and whose contribution to society is priced low”.

That something is seriously screwed with the way we eat is well illustrated by the Walmart story. Patel as well as doing a very good demolition job on the company notes that the company counts 80% of US citizens as customers and has made multi billionaires of the founders children.

For me missing from the book is any serious coverage of the “meat” trade and its particularly devastating on animals, the environment, those who work in the industry and the health of those who consume its product. This however is a subject that has been well covered by any others elsewhere. Also missing is any real addressing of the population problem. I know a lot of people feel that population is unPC and not something that should be taken seriously however it is the elephant in the room and should be tackled for what it is rather than what reactionaries might try to make it.

While Patel, I think probably rightly, is disparaging of supposed equalising projects like Fair Trade - “ethical hedonism for those able to afford it” - he is upbeat about the potential of those forced into a situation by the lack of any other choice to make change. This is highlighted by the success of the various landless movements at one end of the scale and by alternative state policies at the other. In this respect, while noting their faults, Patel highlights Cuba and the Indian state of Kerala both of which by pursuing people based policy have achieved impressive results in terms of wealth distribution, land ownership, food production and literacy. It is interesting to note the hysterical reaction such projects receive from those at the other end of the spectrum who truly feel the threat of such good examples. It is clear that where people are motivated to take an active part in their foods production, distribution and consumption generally the results are better for all including the environment.

As Patel states “The food system […] creates poverty at the same time as it produces an abundance of food. It fosters hunger and disease through its mechanisms of production and distribution”. As long as the corporations control the politicians and institutions that make this possible little is likely to change globally but as Patel shows, locally people can and do struggle to show this is not the only way. A highly recommended and comprehensive read that will challenge any reader.
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Sep 17, 2009 Meera rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Meera by: Cosmopolitan Book Club (March Selection)

This book was very educational for me, as I didn't know much about world food systems. It describes the origins of famines, the increasing rates of obesity and malnutrition world-wide, and how they are all tied to corporate food enterprises that have monopolies over seeds, soy, cattle, etc - and price foods 40-100 times greater than what the worker that plowed the fields got for these products.

It comes at a very appropriate time, since books about food culture seem to be all the rage at the mom...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Corrie Beebe rated it 4 of 5 stars

An in depth, and somewhat academic look at the world food system. This book isn't just about bashing Agribusiness, it tells a story of how the current food system came about, the damage to people and planet, and how in reality it all comes down to power, politics and, of course, money. While this book isn't as readable as Michael Pollan's books (due to a more academic tone) the information is well researched and accessible. One particular factor I enjoyed was the international approach. Patel ta...more

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Jun 03, 2008 David Gleeson rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very digestible read for the consumer that’s liable to provoke dyspepsia in the bellies of food giants and governments alike.
In taking a moralistic view of starvation and obesity, our media, governments and many NGOs have condemned those suffering to more of the same. While the institutional causes remain unaddressed – in large part thanks to public sector responsibility being abdicated to private sector interests – we can only expect more headlines about food riots and editorials on farmer s...more

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Apr 23, 2008 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I hope this book gets widely read, it's couldn't be more timely, and cuts through a lot of bullshit without cutting any corners on the way to its powerful conclusions.

Will post a link to review when I write one, in the meantime, I have to post this paragraph on Haiti, as I've been thinking a lot about my brothers and sisters there:

p.87 “Just as workers in Europe and the US resisted the poverty of life in new cities’ slums, so did the slaves whose labour kept food prices low for the white working...more I hope this book gets widely read, it's couldn't be more timely, and cuts through a lot of bullshit without cutting any corners on the way to its powerful conclusions.

Will post a link to review when I write one, in the meantime, I have to post this paragraph on Haiti, as I've been thinking a lot about my brothers and sisters there:

p.87 “Just as workers in Europe and the US resisted the poverty of life in new cities’ slums, so did the slaves whose labour kept food prices low for the white working class. Slaves, too, had caught the winds of revolution, and never more than in the Haitian slave uprising. Inspired by the American Revolution, and after centuries of plunder by Europe, the Haitian slaves, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, seized control of their country. After seeing off the French, British, Spanish and French again, the Haitian slaves fought their way to an independence that was, briefly, glorious. The retribution was, however, uncommonly fierce and brutal. Since its 1791-1804 revolution, Haiti has been reduced to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere by the conscious action, over the subsequent 200 years, of the US, France and Germany. It is hard to understand the ferocity of the reprisals against Haiti unless we understand the fears of contagion that its revolution inspired among the elites of other countries.”

O.K., now I'll also add that there's a great interview with Raj Pahtel at alternet this week:

http://www.alternet.org/module/printv...

[sorry, can't make the link work, call me technophobe]

from that interview:
RP: All of the reasons I've given for why people are forced to eat bad food have nothing to do with choice. Choice is almost entirely absent from any of these calculations. Yes, you can choose between Burger King or McDonald's, but you don't get to choose to have time to have a healthy meal. You don't get to choose to have time to sit down with your family and cook a decent meal, to really enjoy food, savor it, and connect with it. What we're left with is this poor simulacrum of choice -- constrained between two options that are equally bad for you. Individualizing this is a case of blaming the victim. When we say that it is your fault because you're choosing McDonalds rather than the Whole Food's salad, that's bollocks because people couldn't choose the Whole Food's salad. The choice is Coke or Pepsi, Burger King or McDonalds, either because people don't have the time or the money.

OR: I think that's such an important critique. To read your book is to see the infrastructure behind what Pollan proposes: to spend more time to have meals together, to grow more of our own food. I think it's critical for people who are middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy, who are trying to be conscientious eaters, to understand why they have the choices they have and why these may not be as readily available to others.

RP: The message that is so much harder to explain to Americans is that politics is necessary. People do need to get their hands dirty by getting involved in social change. There is a particularly American fantasy that we can together create a better world by shopping. It's absolutely a case of thinking we can go to Whole Foods, choose the right thing, shop here, pay for this and all of a sudden we will lift the righteous above the impure.

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Feb 01, 2011 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book to be fascinating, but like many books that tackle the issue of the problem with the world food system, it doesn't offer any solutions or ideas as to how to solve our problems. That is my only problem with the book. It is clearly researched and sited well. But it doesn't end with a sense of optimism but maybe that's just the reality of the situation. There's just no real way to dig ourselves out of the situation we've created without completely throwing it.

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Feb 25, 2010 Corey rated it 4 of 5 stars

A book about the food system. Scary, as you might imagine, but the book did not depress me like I thought it would. While much of the content was sub-happy, Patel provided examples of people and groups taking action against the ridiculousness of the system, and making their way work. Mostly. There was enough upside to leave me feeling somewhat hopeful at the end of the book.

Lots of interesting facts in the book. I think I'd call this a must read if you are a person who tends to eat.

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Sep 28, 2009 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

Powerful quite readable about the world food system and how fucked up it is, why there is so much soy and various other additives in our food, how Monsanto is a big bully, how CSAs are great and about the Via Campesina and other farmer movements that are fighting back. You wont want to eat some things after reading this though nor patronize WalMart, and you will think twice about the supermarket system!

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Jul 31, 2008 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: social-political-commentary

A well-crafted, intelligent, and utterly relevant treatise on the food distribution monopoly held tightly by a handful of corporations. There is a sense of urgency and anger in Patel's writing- particularly when presenting farmer suicides, the travesty of India's Green Revolution and the slavish devotion to soy, but he is not a propagandist. Instead, he presents a rationale view of the politics of food, shopping, eating trends by examining the history of crop development and distribution and how...more

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title link	preview: Stuffed And Starved: Markets, Power And The Hidden Battle For The World Food System
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2015924.Stuffed_And_Starved?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358743145l/2015924.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2015924.Stuffed_And_Starved?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Stuffed And Starved: Markets, Power And The Hidden Battle For The World Food System by Raj Patel[/url]

Stuffed And Starved: Markets, Power And The Hidden Battle For The World Food System

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