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Food, Inc. 2: Inside the Quest for a Better Future for Food
An eye-opening guide to how America feeds itself and an essential companion book to the new documentary
America’s food system is broken, harming family farmers, workers, the environment, and our health. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Here, brilliant innovators, scientists, journalists and activists explain how we can create a hopeful new future for food, if we have the courage to seize the moment.
In 2008, the award-winning documentary Food, Inc. shook up our perceptions of what we ate. Now, the movie’s timely sequel and this new companion book will address the remarkable developments in the world of food—from lab-grown meat to the burgeoning food sovereignty movement—that have unfolded since then.
Featuring thought-provoking original essays
Michael Pollan • Eric Schlosser • David E. Kelley and Andrew Zimmern • Senator Cory Booker • Sarah E. Lloyd • Carlos A. Monteiro and Geoffrey Cannon • Lisa Elaine Held • Larissa Zimberoff • Saru Jayaraman • Christiana Musk • Nancy Easton • Leah Penniman • David LeZaks and Lauren Manning • The Coalition of Immokalee Workers • Michiel Bakker • Danielle Nierenberg
This book is the perfect roadmap to understanding not only our current dysfunctional food system, but also what each of us can do to help reform it.
America’s food system is broken, harming family farmers, workers, the environment, and our health. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Here, brilliant innovators, scientists, journalists and activists explain how we can create a hopeful new future for food, if we have the courage to seize the moment.
In 2008, the award-winning documentary Food, Inc. shook up our perceptions of what we ate. Now, the movie’s timely sequel and this new companion book will address the remarkable developments in the world of food—from lab-grown meat to the burgeoning food sovereignty movement—that have unfolded since then.
Featuring thought-provoking original essays
Michael Pollan • Eric Schlosser • David E. Kelley and Andrew Zimmern • Senator Cory Booker • Sarah E. Lloyd • Carlos A. Monteiro and Geoffrey Cannon • Lisa Elaine Held • Larissa Zimberoff • Saru Jayaraman • Christiana Musk • Nancy Easton • Leah Penniman • David LeZaks and Lauren Manning • The Coalition of Immokalee Workers • Michiel Bakker • Danielle Nierenberg
This book is the perfect roadmap to understanding not only our current dysfunctional food system, but also what each of us can do to help reform it.
- GenresFoodNonfiction
336 pages, Paperback
Published December 5, 2023
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111 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 27, 2023
The first Food, Inc. documentary was life changing for me. I had recently read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, then after I watched the first Food, Inc. I totally changed how I ate. I stopped buying meat at the grocery store and only purchased it directly from local farmers. We started growing more food, learned to can, and basically changed how we ate. So, needless to say I was very excited to hear that Food, Inc. 2 was coming! While waiting for the new documentary I decided to go ahead and read this companion book to the second documentary. I was a little concerned that the focus might be on more plant-based and fake meat, but that was not the case. There were some mentions, but overall the book is still a good collection of essays by a variety of authors continuing the discussion on our current food system and how it could be better. I love that the first section is essays by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser who were the narrators of the original Food, Inc. documentary. There was a ton of really interesting information that continues to highlight just how awful the current industrial food system is for everyone. I can't wait to see the new documentary! In the meantime I'm still reading about our food system and still adding to what I'm doing at home and supporting my local lunatic farmers.
There were lots of quotes I liked:
In April 2020, "...President Donald Trump issued an executive order that declared meatpacking plants to be 'critical infrastructure' under the Defense Production Act of 1950 and prohibited closure by state health authorities." (p. 12) under the guise that the American people NEEDED this meat that was being processed especially during COVID. " In 2022 "The House subcommittee found that the risk of severe meat shortages, cited repeatedly by the industry to avoid worker protections, was a myth. For example, during the spring of 2020, the United States had 622 million pounds of pork in cold storage - enough to supply American grocery stores for more than a year. 'During the first three quarters of 2020, Smithfield exported 90 percent more pork to China than it did during the same period in 2017, while JBS appears to have exported a whopping 370 percent more,' the subcommittee report said. The profits of the meatpacking industry skyrocketed during the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2021, Tyson's net income increased from $2 billion to $3 billion, while the net income of JBS rose from $937 million to $4.2 billion." (p. 22)
"Many ultra-processed foods are deliberately formulated to be hyper-palatable, instantly gratifying, and habit-forming. A recent review of the science concludes that some 'are created in ways that parallel the development of addictive drugs, including the inclusion of an unnaturally high dose of rewarding ingredients that are rapidly absorbed into the system and enhanced through additives.'" (p. 44)
"In July 2021, the Rockefeller Foundation released a report estimating the true cost of food in the United States. It found that while Americans reached into their wallets and paid just over $1 trillion to purchase food in 2019, the actual cost - including the economic toll of pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, health care, and other factors - was three times that amount, at more than $3 trillion." (p. 92)
"...Iowa is home to twenty-three million pigs at any given moment, an increase of 64 percent in the last twenty years. And pig waste is a real shitstorm compared to chicken waste. In 2019, a University of Iowa research engineer calculated that, while Iowa has a population of just 3.2 million people, it produces the waste of 168 million. In November 2019, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources found that more than half the state's rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands failed to meet water quality standards due to pollutants including nitrogen, E. coli, and cyanobacteria. The agency has documented hundreds of manure spills from confinement operations, which regularly kill thousands of fish and other aquatic organisms." (p. 94)
"However, in the United States, despite the populist movement, anti-tipping sentiment was largely quelled in the 1850s and 1860s due to restaurant employers' quest to seek ever-cheaper labor. In 1853, waiters in large northeastern cities, who were mostly white men who received full wages and no tips, went on strike to demand higher salaries from their employers. In response, restaurants replaced these male waiters with women entering the workforce, offering them far less wages. Twelve years later, when emancipation finally resulted in the slaves being freed, restaurant owners sought an even cheaper source of labor. They hired newly freed African Americans arriving in northern cities after emancipation, offering them service jobs with no wages at all - only the opportunity to obtain white customers' tips." (p. 105)
"A 2021 study on the impact of subsidies on farmer behavior also concluded that subsidies often disincentivize producers from risk-mitigation efforts. If crop insurance and subsidy payments neutralize negative impacts from low prices or poor yields, a farmer has less incentive to take proactive steps against those outcomes - for example, by paying for cover crops to boost soil health, diversifying rotations, or repairing degraded riparian buffers to prevent nutrient runoff." (p. 126)
"Rather than encouraging Americans to adopt healthier eating habits, US industry has a vested interest in producing and selling medications aimed at alleviating diseases caused by unhealthy foods. Accordingly, between 1999 and 2018, the pharmaceutical industry spent roughly $4.7 billion on lobbying while making $414 million in contributions to political campaigns. It shelled out another $877 million in contributions to state-based candidates. Most of these contributions were targeted toward senior legislators responsible for drafting health-care laws or committees that oversee referenda on drug pricing and regulation." (p. 127-28)
"...data from OSHA summarized in a 2019 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report shows that in the United States, a worker in the meat and poultry industry lost a body part or was sent to the hospital for in-patient treatment about every other day between 2015 and 2018. Between 2013 and 2017, eight workers died, on average, each year because of an incident in their plant." (p. 210)
"Charles Eisenstein writes, 'When you eat something, you eat everything that happened to make that food come into existence. You are affirming a certain version of the world.' He then asks, 'Does it nourish you? Are you happy with the reality you are saying yes to?'" (p. 235)
There were lots of quotes I liked:
In April 2020, "...President Donald Trump issued an executive order that declared meatpacking plants to be 'critical infrastructure' under the Defense Production Act of 1950 and prohibited closure by state health authorities." (p. 12) under the guise that the American people NEEDED this meat that was being processed especially during COVID. " In 2022 "The House subcommittee found that the risk of severe meat shortages, cited repeatedly by the industry to avoid worker protections, was a myth. For example, during the spring of 2020, the United States had 622 million pounds of pork in cold storage - enough to supply American grocery stores for more than a year. 'During the first three quarters of 2020, Smithfield exported 90 percent more pork to China than it did during the same period in 2017, while JBS appears to have exported a whopping 370 percent more,' the subcommittee report said. The profits of the meatpacking industry skyrocketed during the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2021, Tyson's net income increased from $2 billion to $3 billion, while the net income of JBS rose from $937 million to $4.2 billion." (p. 22)
"Many ultra-processed foods are deliberately formulated to be hyper-palatable, instantly gratifying, and habit-forming. A recent review of the science concludes that some 'are created in ways that parallel the development of addictive drugs, including the inclusion of an unnaturally high dose of rewarding ingredients that are rapidly absorbed into the system and enhanced through additives.'" (p. 44)
"In July 2021, the Rockefeller Foundation released a report estimating the true cost of food in the United States. It found that while Americans reached into their wallets and paid just over $1 trillion to purchase food in 2019, the actual cost - including the economic toll of pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, health care, and other factors - was three times that amount, at more than $3 trillion." (p. 92)
"...Iowa is home to twenty-three million pigs at any given moment, an increase of 64 percent in the last twenty years. And pig waste is a real shitstorm compared to chicken waste. In 2019, a University of Iowa research engineer calculated that, while Iowa has a population of just 3.2 million people, it produces the waste of 168 million. In November 2019, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources found that more than half the state's rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands failed to meet water quality standards due to pollutants including nitrogen, E. coli, and cyanobacteria. The agency has documented hundreds of manure spills from confinement operations, which regularly kill thousands of fish and other aquatic organisms." (p. 94)
"However, in the United States, despite the populist movement, anti-tipping sentiment was largely quelled in the 1850s and 1860s due to restaurant employers' quest to seek ever-cheaper labor. In 1853, waiters in large northeastern cities, who were mostly white men who received full wages and no tips, went on strike to demand higher salaries from their employers. In response, restaurants replaced these male waiters with women entering the workforce, offering them far less wages. Twelve years later, when emancipation finally resulted in the slaves being freed, restaurant owners sought an even cheaper source of labor. They hired newly freed African Americans arriving in northern cities after emancipation, offering them service jobs with no wages at all - only the opportunity to obtain white customers' tips." (p. 105)
"A 2021 study on the impact of subsidies on farmer behavior also concluded that subsidies often disincentivize producers from risk-mitigation efforts. If crop insurance and subsidy payments neutralize negative impacts from low prices or poor yields, a farmer has less incentive to take proactive steps against those outcomes - for example, by paying for cover crops to boost soil health, diversifying rotations, or repairing degraded riparian buffers to prevent nutrient runoff." (p. 126)
"Rather than encouraging Americans to adopt healthier eating habits, US industry has a vested interest in producing and selling medications aimed at alleviating diseases caused by unhealthy foods. Accordingly, between 1999 and 2018, the pharmaceutical industry spent roughly $4.7 billion on lobbying while making $414 million in contributions to political campaigns. It shelled out another $877 million in contributions to state-based candidates. Most of these contributions were targeted toward senior legislators responsible for drafting health-care laws or committees that oversee referenda on drug pricing and regulation." (p. 127-28)
"...data from OSHA summarized in a 2019 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report shows that in the United States, a worker in the meat and poultry industry lost a body part or was sent to the hospital for in-patient treatment about every other day between 2015 and 2018. Between 2013 and 2017, eight workers died, on average, each year because of an incident in their plant." (p. 210)
"Charles Eisenstein writes, 'When you eat something, you eat everything that happened to make that food come into existence. You are affirming a certain version of the world.' He then asks, 'Does it nourish you? Are you happy with the reality you are saying yes to?'" (p. 235)
May 2, 2024
I find all aspects of food and nutrition really interesting and have been able to spend a good amount of time in the Midwest and Great Plains where I have experienced some aspects of our agricultural system, so found these varied chapters intriguing. Each chapter focused deeply on some aspect of our food or agricultural system -- often a specific program or movement I was not previously aware of. This book is a tale of extremes -- degradation of topsoil, massive corporate farms, individuals taking on massive systems like school lunch programs to improve children's lives or fund small and mid-size farms to improve soils and grow varied and nutrient dense crops (rather than commodities like soy and corn).
November 24, 2024
"If you stay on the path you are on, you will get where you are going."
A collection of essays from very different specialists about the food crisis in the US (and the world). There are a lot of point of views and solutions, all seem still too distant from being implemented and recognized both from farmers (that cannot really compete with the big companies) and public officials (that benefit from keeping the status quo). There is no magic bullet, and i particularly feel that we are all powerless to really make a change as population continues to grow, corporations are becoming unchecked and democracy is at crisis and ignoring science. All the book makes sense but does not explain (yet) how we can reverse the path we are in terms of having the real power to break the cycle.
A collection of essays from very different specialists about the food crisis in the US (and the world). There are a lot of point of views and solutions, all seem still too distant from being implemented and recognized both from farmers (that cannot really compete with the big companies) and public officials (that benefit from keeping the status quo). There is no magic bullet, and i particularly feel that we are all powerless to really make a change as population continues to grow, corporations are becoming unchecked and democracy is at crisis and ignoring science. All the book makes sense but does not explain (yet) how we can reverse the path we are in terms of having the real power to break the cycle.
March 11, 2024
In conjunction with the film, this book provides additional understanding on dismantling the food system and stretching consumer thought further than ethical shopping. Much like the Oscar-nominated and Emmy award winning first documentary Food Inc from 2008, this book gets the activist blood pumping by inspiring innovation, change, and challenges societal definitions of true sustainability.
February 7, 2024
OK, but like.... if you eat food.... you should read.this.book.
October 27, 2024
There is an overwhelming amount of information presented in this book, which can make it challenging to absorb everything at once. However, despite the density of content, the guide is incredibly comprehensive and covers all aspects of the food industry. From production to distribution and everything in between, it offers valuable insights and practical advice. Overall, it serves as a helpful resource for anyone looking to understand the complexities of the food industry more thoroughly. While it may require some patience to digest all the details, it is well worth the effort.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews