sqbr: A cartoon cat saying Ham! (ham!)
Sean ([personal profile] sqbr) wrote2009-03-27 12:31 pm
Entry tags:

Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel

Unfortunately I didn't finish this book, not because it's bad but because I'd reached my quite low mental limit for nonfiction books(*) (Why yes, this did help make my Phd unbearable) "Luckily" I accidentally arrived at the library 45 minutes before it opened, so spent the time reading the last chapter (having read the first 2 or 3 already) and deciding on bits to quote.

So: this is a very good book, exploring the problems with the global food industry, how it's bad for everyone from farmers to consumers, and how everyone can fix it.

There's a website, which has one of the most important things to take away from it, what to do.

Here's a the full annotated list but in short:

  • Transform our tastes.
  • Eat locally and seasonally.
  • Eat agroecologically.
  • Support locally owned business.
  • Insist that the workers who grow our food have the right to dignity.
  • Advocate profound and comprehensive rural change.
  • Demand living wages for all.
  • Support a sustainable architecture of food.
  • Snap the food system’s bottleneck.
  • Own and provide restitution for the injustices of the past and present.


And yes, I know a lot of you have been doing this stuff for ages, and good for you. I'm still not becoming vegan :P And I must admit I've been avoiding some of these ideas partly because I don't want my smugly activist father and sister to be all..smug about it. But that's silly.

I think the easiest and most personally beneficial thing for me at least is to buy fruit and veg from local stores and preferably farmers markets (supermarket F&V is foul). Luckily I have a quite good fruit and veg store right near my house, I realise this is harder for other people.

I think I shall buy a copy, possibly from Boffins (a locally owned bookstore) and think about it all some more.

And now two photocopied and scanned bits which I hope Mr Patel wouldn't object to (and yes, if I was smart I would have scanned it BEFORE going to library):



(*)This being entirely [livejournal.com profile] sanguinity's fault.

[identity profile] david adam <zanchey> (from livejournal.com) 2009-03-29 01:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Claremont farmer's market has good and cheap food. I'm not sure how well that sort of thing scales though.
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (Default)

[personal profile] alias_sqbr 2009-03-30 02:40 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I don't know. I find it all a bit confusing :/

(also: There's one in Midland too which is a lot closer for me)