Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food Industry Is Killing Us (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The "toxic cornucopia" of big agriculture is pilloried in this populist manifesto. Journalist Cook offers a nauseating recap of familiar charges: factory farming serves up pesticide-laden produce; the horrifying mills of high-density feedlots and hog and poultry sheds produce meat laced with hormones and antibiotics but still tainted with lethal bacteria; pesticide, fertilizer and manure runoff pollute air and water; immigrant meatpackers are paid paltry wages and physically ruined by inhuman line speedups. The heart of the book is an analysis of agricultural economics straight out of an 1890s Grange hall. Cook laments the destruction of family farms by a corporate "octopus" of agribusiness giants and parasitic middlemen who squeeze prices for farm products and inflate them for highly processed convenience foods on the store shelf, abetted by government farm subsidies that encourage overproduction and favor big producers. Cook's objections often seem to be to aimed at modernity itself—to the same forces of technology-driven, mechanized productivity that have industrialized the nonfarm economy. He doesn't explain how, without legions of housewives to make meals from scratch, we can do without food-processing middlemen nor why his program of returning to small family farms will curb abuses of animals, workers, consumers and the environment better than firmer government regulation of large-scale agriculture. His indictment is compelling, but his nostalgic remedy isn't fully persuasive.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

A powerful and provocative indictment of the food industry. If you eat, read this important book! -- Jim Hightower

Armed with Cook's compelling expose, we don't have to be victims. -- Frances Moore Lappe

Christopher Cook helps us rethink the very ethical and environmental principals that ought to guide our approach to food. -- Jeremy Rifkin

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 326 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (November 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565848640
• ISBN-13: 978-1565848641
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #838,857 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A no-nonsense book, February 5, 2005

By	L.A. in CA - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a worthy analysis of contemporary agriculture, February 24, 2005

By	J. Higgins (Jessup MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pigout Nation -- Wake Up!!!, November 22, 2004

By	a reader from SF - See all my reviews

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.