Feeding the future

There's been a lot of interest over the last little while in food security - knowing we all have enough to eat and that what we do have is safe to eat. The slow food and local food movements are growing worldwide, and questions about altered food (genetically or chemically) are getting louder and more frequent.

For many of us, it's hard to know who to believe when we hear food safety and food supply discussions. Some of those discussions are quite heated and few of us have the training necessary to follow all the arguments. At times we're not even sure we know what all the questions are, let alone who's got the (believable/reliable/responsible/realistic) answers.

Feeding the future is a collection of expert opinions on a variety of food security issues including tainted beef, over-fishing, genetically modified foods, the obesity epidemic, and worldwide food distribution. Each author gets one chapter and the various authors don't necessarily agree with one another, but that makes the book more useful for the reader. Footnotes provide references to continue research on subjects that catch your interest or verify points you find hard to accept.

Editors Andrew Heintzman and Evan Solomon have done a good job of pulling such disparate voices together into a cohesive whole. They begin each chapter with a brief author/subject introduction that I found tremendously useful. They are also responsible for additional content added as sidebars to the main text.

Although the subtitle of this book (from fat to famine, how to solve the world's food crises) promises solutions, I would liken this book to a survey course. Solutions are certainly proposed but if resolving the issues were that simple, we would already be there. Instead, I would call this an excellent starting point for a self-directed study, or, at the very least, enough information to get you through a number of earnest conversations.

Feeding the future : from fat to famine, how to solve the world's food crises edited by Andrew Heintzman and Evan Solomon. Published in 2004 by Anansi. ISBN: 978-0-88784-744-8

The omnivore's dilemma : a natural history of four meals

"'What am I eating? And where in the world did it come from?' Not very long ago an eater didn't need a journalist to answer these questions. The fact that today one so often does suggests a pretty good start on a working definition of industrial food: Any food whose provenance is so complex or obscure that it requires expert help to ascertain." (pg. 17)

Michael Pollan will have you asking those same questions. Pollan is an investigative journalist with several book credits under his belt. Not all of them are about food but he does explore the theme further and with good reason. One of the things that has changed significantly in our world and within our collective memory is what and how we eat.

By and large, we are a trusting population. We assume that, barring any recalls, if it's on the grocery store shelf, it must be safe to eat. We can't pronounce half the items on the ingredients list but they're in everything so it's no big deal. Besides, we're constantly bombarded with conflicting health information so it's easier to just ignore it all.

In bite-sized pieces (I had to work that in), Pollan takes the reader through his experiences in looking deeper into four representative meals - ranging from MacDonald's drive-through dining to gathered from the wild. Although the facts are clearly stated, this is not a heavily analytical book. It is more a looking-over-the-shoulder-of-the-author/adventurer read. Pollan is a story teller whose mission is to pass along what he's learned.

Now he may not tell you what you should or shouldn't be eating, but he will make you think about it. If you read and like this one, you may also want to try The botany of desire : a plant's-eye view of the world, (2001) or In defense of food(2008).

The omnivore's dilemma : a natural history of four meals by Michael Pollan. Published in 2007 by Penguin. ISBN: 978-0143038580