Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel

[sqbr]

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 sanguinity's fault.

Comments

[sanguinity]

I like the part about me. :-D

[alias_sqbr]

I'm not surprised, now that your evil plan to make me late returning books to the library has come to pass!