Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System [Paperback]

Raj Patel (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 1, 2008

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist and scholar Patel (Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform) focuses attention on the unfortunate irony of the current world food situation, in which the imbalance of world resources has created an epidemic of obesity in some parts of the world while millions in the "Global South" endure starvation. To make sense of the situation, Patel addresses the entire system of global food production, distribution and sale, concluding that "unless you're a corporate food executive, the food system isn't working for you." "Record levels of diet-related disease" plague consumers, cruel market realities (and unsympathetic officials) doom farmers, and communities are beset by a supermarket system that provides "cheap calories" while "bleeding local economies." Patel analyzes what can be done, presenting logical recommendations and strategies for individuals-eat locally, seasonally, and ecologically; support local business, workers' rights, and living wages; create a sustainable food system-though several primary components of his big vision (including ending agribusiness subsidies and corporate farming, and levying a tax on processed foods) are clearly a long way off. Those concerned about global health, social justice and the environment will be aware of many of the issues presented here, but should still find much to learn.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"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

"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

“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

"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

"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

"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

"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."
—The Guardian

"Stuffed and Starved remains a brilliant didactic account of the powerful interests (dis)organizing our food systems, and why, when food is an object of profit, there are no modern solutions to modern problems such as endemic hunger, ill-health and environmental degradation...Raj Patel’s unique sensibility and intelligence in evaluating grassroots alternatives provide a road map to understanding and changing the world through re-centering food as a cultural anchor rather than a product, especially at this moment of environmental uncertainty." —Philip David McMichael, author of Development and Social Change

"With its conversational tone, sense of humor, and real-life vignettes from the author's travels around the world, the book is accessible to general readers and will be as classroom-friendly as Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma." —Reference and Research Book News

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Melville House; 398 edition (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933633492
• ISBN-13: 978-1933633497
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #217,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
  • #52 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Agricultural Sciences > History

More About the Author

RAJ PATEL is a Fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy (also known as Food First), a leading food think tank, and a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and The Observer, is a regular contributor to NPR and independent media outlets, and though he has worked for the World Bank, WTO and the UN, he's also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them. Visit his website at www.rajpatel.org

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars required reading June 3, 2008

By David Gleeson

Format:Paperback

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 suicides, just as diabetes (II) continues apace.
The resounding conclusion is that `free market' policies remain accountable only to shareholders - not to farmers, not to consumers, and certainly not to the governments that unleashed them.
But Stuffed & Starved is as prescriptive as it is diagnostic. By identifying the grassroots organisations that have come to terms with the problems and begun to enact the social changes necessary for remedy, Patel brings to the page a message of hope and understanding with great clarity. To his credit, he is no less objective or critical in examining these social movements (as they struggle to develop) than he is of the corporations, WTO, and World Bank.
If you're interested in a comprehensive overview of what's behind the headlines, of what's causing the paradox of starvation at the same time as an epidemic of obesity, this is the book.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Contradictions with Connections October 15, 2008

By J. Jones

Format:Paperback

In his comprehensive critique of the global food system, Patel takes his time winding his way through every stage of the food production process, through the experiences and perspectives of all involved--lay and professional--from around the world. Patel ultimately blames both corporations and governments for their complicity in undermining local, cultural, and sustainable foodways and thereby causing the major food-related problems of today, from obesity to starvation. Drenched in details and indictments, Patel's Stuffed and Starved is a broad but accessible analysis of global food struggles that aims to inform and incite the general Western public.

Despite his heady academic and professional background, Patel keeps the technical and academic jargon to a minimum, using basic reportage and narrative description to convey his ideas, analyses, and anecdotes. As such, the book has the possibility of appealing to an audience beyond the academy. However, based on Patel's political bent, Stuffed and Starved is still most likely to play better to a more leftward-leaning and politically-engaged audience.

The breadth of Stuffed and Starved is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness. Patel does not shy away from his stated task of examining the global food system in all its overwhelming complexity. He does explain in the introduction that he tries to maintain organization by arranging the chapters according to what should chronologically be the beginning of the food cycle--farming--and then winding his way through each of the stages of food production and distribution until he ends up at consumption. However, the complexity of the system, the global scope of the project, and Patel's own intimate knowledge and passion for the subject work against any kind of neat-and-tidy organization or argument. Although such complexities speak volumes about the current state of the global food system and the major problems within it, they also can be confusing on a number of different levels.

Overall, Stuffed and Starved is an informative introduction for the lay reader interested in political issues related to food production, distribution, and consumption around the world, particularly those who appreciated Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and would like a look beyond the North American context. Academic audiences may also find Patel's text useful for the broad coverage that he gives to various food-related economic and political problems all over the world, as well as his extensive bibliography and research. The book can be used almost like a reference text in this way, indexing an expanse of contemporary food-related issues.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Patel Stuffs Readers, In a Good Way May 13, 2008

By R. Heydon

Format:Paperback

In his new book, "Stuffed and Starved," Raj Patel hits a nerve, or rather a whole digestive system worth of nerves. Until late, these two hot topics-obesity and the food crisis- were discussed separately. Patel's research shows why and how there are now more obese people than ever before, and more starving people. Patel takes an original view and places the blame not just on the governments, but on their famous trade agreements that we all thought were so fabulous-NAFTA ring a bell? He discusses how the "consumer" market and trade agreements are what have caused an increase in percentage of farmer suicides, food riots, and starving communities throughout the world. The book is a fast read, full of stuff you definitely didn't know. Although perhaps intended for the political or activist type, it's a worthwhile, interesting read for anyone who shops at a supermarket, a Wal-Mart, is thinking of going organic, or is upset about the rising cost of food. Not only does Patel offer a hearty argument for his points, but he offers a 10-step "fix" for us, everyday folk to start taking to help the problem....that, at least is worth the buy/read-in...