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September SGT Book Club: Stuffed and Starved

This month, the Simple, Good and Tasty book club is tackling Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel. Get ready to dive into the global food system and begin to think in new ways about how it serves or fails to serve humanity. Instead of focusing on individual choices, Raj Patel asks questions about how food is delivered to people, whether it be big box stores in America or third world farmers growing crops for the industrial world. Patel also gives us new insights on why the food system fails to equally to all. Perhaps one of the best qualities of his writing is that what is offered here is not simply a book for the Western world. What is offered is a fair look at all sides of the issue and he is definitely not afraid to point out the limitations of even the most popular and fresh ideas, such as the organic movement.

Sound interesting? Come and discuss the book in Minneapolis at the Linden Hills Coop, Wednesday the 28th of September at 6:30 in the evening. In the Bemidji area? The book club will meet on Thursday the 29th at 5:30. Email Sue at suedoeden@gmail.com for directions. 

Review from Betterworldbooks.com

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.

 

cover photo courtesy of: Rajpatel.org

Lawrence Black is a writer and editor at Simple, Good and Tasty.  He can be reached at lawrence@simplegoodandtasty.com.