Customer Reviews

The Food System

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What is "the food system" and do we want one? Reminds me of hospital dining or "mystery meat" in the high school cafeterias of yore. But here we are: the food system describes the biological, economic and political, and social and cultural intertwining of processes by which people and food come together. This is a global construct, "developed, run and promoted worldwide by economic institutions in the rich and powerful nations."

Tansey, a visiting research fellow at England's University of Bradford, and Worsley, director of the Food Policy Research Unit of CSIRO, Australia (and we don't know what that organization is, sorry) have seemingly put together a truly unique book. It examines everything and everybody from the key players in food production, farmers and workers, processors and distributors, and consumers, to legal, scientific and technological control of food, with, understandably, heavy emphasis on findings from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The book's most easily accessed information comes from numerous fact-filled boxes, so labeled, with headings such as "Ancient Rome's bread and circuses," "breast milk is best milk", " the Euro biscuit," "mind-mapping," "targeting children," "Norway's food policy," "unwelcome food bugs and their effects," "per capita spending on fast food in selected countries, 1992," and so on. Fascinating "bites" on a range of food subjects.