The End of Food: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Food Supply-And What Youcan Do about It

by Thomas F. Pawlick

Disaster looms in our current method of food production. The vitamin, mineral, and nutritional content of food is in shocking decline, a decline that is coupled with an equally shocking increase in the most noxious, often outright toxic contaminants in our food. Based on hard scientific research, The End of Food exposes the cause of this crisis—and industrial system of food production geared not to producing nourishing food, but to producing maximum profit for corporations.

Pawlick does not simply sound the alarm bell—he advocates a rejection of the current food production system. His mission is to raise consumer awareness so that individuals will no longer buy foods that are produced for the highest profit rather than for nutritional content.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Health, Science, Environment, Nutrition, Cooking

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Thomas F. Pawlick has more than thirty-five years of experience as a journalist and editor, specializing in science, environmental, and agricultural reporting. He is a three-time winner of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association National Journalism Award and has won the National Magazine Award for agricultural reporting. He lives on a 150-acre farm in eastern Ontario.

Reviews

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would say the first 120 pages are a must-read for anyone interested in what's really going on with our food supply. Some of the info I'd already read elsewhere, but much of it was new to me. The writing is clear and straightforward, and not too scientific for the average reader. (I'm a scientist, but still, I think this stuff is pretty tame.)

Pawlick cites many well-documented studies, mostly done in other countries. Corporate-financed research in the U.S. prevents discovery and/or reportage of the truth.
There's some pretty disturbing and downright creepy information here. I don't plan on being an alarmist, but I like to feel like I am at least making informed choices.

The later chapters get rather tedious with discussions of damages caused by farming practices, urbanization, and so on. This stuff is important, to be sure, but I've read most of it elsewhere and just scanned these chapters. My interest in the book was mostly the food itself.

The end of the book has lots of good info for people who want to "fight back" by growing their own food, saving seeds, etc. I'm not in a position to do this, so I scanned this stuff also, but there are some good resources here for those who have a patch of land to work with.

[Andrew Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well meaning, there’s a lot of good information that stands up today. Still the author relies way too much on “shocking” the reader with overstatements, decontextualized comparisons, and gimmicky metaphors. On page 22 for example he’s helping the reader understand antioxidants by comparing them to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m on board with what he’s saying for the most part, but the message loses credibility when it isn’t presented seriously.

[Marta Veenhof · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read on the food industry in North America. It dove into both animal and plant farming and the shocking vitamin and nutrient decreases in our foods. The author strives to expose the industry as a profit focused business rather than people who care for our health and wellness. It was crazy to read just how much Vitamin A, C, etc has been depleted from our potatoes, tomatoes, etc in the last 50 years alone.

Some of my favourite parts/quotes:

"Corporations, especially American corporations, have only one concern: maximizing short-term profit, usually on a quarterly basis, along with the salaries and other perks of the upper management teams (...) corporations have one goal only: profit. Everything else, including your health and mine, (...) is just an annoying distraction."

Good link: http://www.cityfarmer.info/

The boomerang effect: "some multinational chemical companies that continued to sell or dump large quantities of chemicals overseas because they could. They were legal over there, just not here. U.S. manufacturers exported more than 465 million pounds of pesticides in 1990, while more than 52 million pounds were banned, restricted, or unregistered for use in the U.S.."

"... the nutritional content of food in North America has been steadily declining for at least the past 50 years, and probably longer. Meanwhile, the amount of toxic or potentially toxic contaminants in the same food has been rising in recent years."

"Fruits and vegetables sold in Canadian supermarkets today contain far fewer nutrients than they did 50 years ago. Vital vitamins and minerals have dramatically declined in some of our most popular foods."

"In general, the body absorbs nutrients best from foods in which the nutrients are diluted and dispersed among other substances that may facilitate their absorption. Taken in pure, concentrated form, nutrients are likely to interfere with one another's absorption or with the absorption of nutrients in foods eaten at the same time."

"Over-the-counter multivitamin and mineral tablets, of the kind we've all seen lining drugstore shelves in a bewildering variety of colorful and confusing packages, contain substances in pure, artificially concentrated form, as extracted via large-scale industrial processes. But the human body doesn't seem to work in a large-scale industrial way."

"You and I, in short, have no choice. The choice has been made for us. Whether we like it or not, we are obliged to accept whatever the meat packer and supermarket chain have decided is the way our meat ought to be flavored."

Andre Picard quote from Globe and Mail TO regarding the decrease in nutritional value in potatoes was interesting. "The average spud has lost 100% of its vitamin A... 57% of its vitamin C and iron... and 28% of its calcium."

[Gavin Esdale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me start this mostly negative review in the opposite spirit of this book by first listing the positives: the book makes some excellent and still-relevant points about monopolization and the generally abhorrent state of industrial agribusiness and the innumerable damages it inflicts upon practically everything it touches, from social cohesion to biodiversity. These points still bear repeating, as do the earnest appeals for a more considerate approach to our patterns of food consumption.

There was also clearly a lot of research that went into this book, and that is where my positive review ends, because it seems that after having doing such a considerable amount of cataloguing of the ills of the food industry, the author decided that it would be worthwhile bludgeoning the reader over the head with them for 180 pages of agony.

I hate it when books about important socio-ecological issues are structured like this. It's difficult enough stomaching the actual problems, which are considerable in and of themselves, but by going on and on and on about them like this, it detracts from the appeals to take action near the end, which are embodied in a near-paltry 30 or so pages with nowhere near the same level of inquiry and evaluation that went into the preceding 180 pages. The result is a book that despite the importance of its message, feels like a wallow in misery with a conciliatory post-it note at the end.

So no, I don't recommend this book. It's good to be informed about the monstrosity that is the modern industrial agriculture business, but there are better resources out there. Read Diet for A Hot Planet and/or The Omnivore's Dilemma instead.

[Auggy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was full of anecdotal, fear-mongering "facts" quoted (in very long blocks) from small town newspapers and Google searches. Information from more credible sources (e.g. USDA nutritional information) was flogged for pages and pages and then the facts are extrapolated to the point of ridiculousness.

The author bio states that Pawlick is an "investigative science journalist" but this book reads nothing like the author has any experience in science. I can't figure out if the author is an idiot or (more likely) thinks his readers are. When describing anti-oxidants, he says, "Like so many microscopic Buffys stamping out vampires without becoming vampires, they de-fang the radicals, rendering them harmless" (p22). When he discusses the preventive use of antibiotics in feedlots (p43), he insists on saying the animals "catch cold" (with quotation marks even) on more than one occasion, as if readers cannot grasp the concept of an animal getting minorly ill in a way other than to "catch cold".

If you are totally new to the problems in our current food system, this will have some interesting facts hidden in the lines of ranting and bitterness, but The End of Food by Paul Roberts (same title, different book) gives even more information in a much more informative, non-ranting way that still manages to be interesting and very readable.

[Gemini · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so informative & insightful. It is simply astounding to learn about the food system & how bad it's gotten over the years. The fact that most people don't know this is actually the reality of the food system, which is dominated by only a few mega-corporations, which is horrifying.
The author does a great job of going through some of the history of how farmers were the main way one got their food to seeing the rise of factory farming. The things the author shares is shocking to say the least. Most people don't know how food gets to their plate, they're so far removed from it. Learning about the decline in nutritional value of our produce is scary. No wonder there are so many ailments plaguing people everywhere. There is so much to this book that can be maddening & make you want to scream. I think knowing the reality of our food system & how the industry has changed so much, may make you rethink where you get your food from. Share this book with everyone!

[Connor Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main premise of the book is good and still stands true nearly a decade later. Pawlick talks about the loss of nutrition in modern produce and meat and describes the impacts that mono-cropping and industrial agriculture have on the planet. His solutions, however, are weak and not engaging. He suggests that the decline in farming and rural life is inherently negative and that we all need to return to farming in one way or another and create seed banks. This solution is not practical and not well developed in the book. Overall an ok read but if you already are aware of these topics, choose a more detailed description of the problem, or a book that offers a more engaging solution.

[Jamie Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting read. Very informative and doesn’t focus solely on American statistics. There are many Canadian examples which I appreciate.
As a vegetarian, I learned a lot about the nutrients in the food I’m eating and learned a lot about the food I’ve chosen to remove from my diet (meat and many animal products).
Would recommend to anyone who eats!! Vegetarians, carnivores, and omnivores alike.
It’s really important to know what you’re putting in your body and this book taught me many practical things about my diet and how to choose my foods wisely.

[Courtney Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Chelsea Cameron-Fikis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clear and interesting read on the current state of our industrial food system. Some of the information was not new to me, but I enjoyed reading it all the same.

[Danger Us · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read. Only read this if you care about what you put in your mouth.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow food movement. Think globally act locally

[Jocelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes you think hard about where your food comes from.

[Joelle K · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dry sometimes and but eye opening for sure!

[Shelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I learned from this book: Our food today is not as nutrious as it was 20-50 years ago. Industrial agriculture models are dangerous to the land and the people they are feeding. Fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy products are not the healtful items they used to be... in fact the current trends in food production may be making people sick.

The book is an interesting read with a lot of eye opening studies, reports and tidbits. The first section deals with the decline of minerals and nutrients in our foods and how current production methods are likely at fault. After that, the author discusses agriculture trends and their impacts on the local and global scale... yes, changes in the way we farm impacts more than just our own country. The final section of the book talks about what we, as consumers, can do to try and make our own little changes -- plant a garden of our own, buy locally instead of at huge chain stores or take part in a community garden type thing. He also discusses heritage seed programs (save the species of plants before they vanish into the three or four 'standards' or turn into genetic hybrids that don't resemble anything we've ever had before) and ways that the average joe blow can take part in those.

It was an interesting, if a bit dry, read and certainly made me want to have my own garden and/or farm... if only I could afford the land!

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like a long article from Z magazine. Lots of pertinent facts, but sometimes overdoing it to make the same point over and over. The main point being: real foods like fruits and vegetables etc. are losing nutrients as they are monocropped and grown for high yields not taste or nutrients. And not only that, the way they are grown is increasing their toxicity as herbicides, fungicides and pesticides are loaded in. He envisions an X point when foods will suddenly become more toxic than nutritious...

He incites a lot of fear, but sometimes warranted. For instance: cattle, sheep, goats and deer can’t be given feed that contains their own protein, but they can be turned into feed for chickens, pigs and pets. In the US chix and pigs can be fed to cattle. so cattle dies and becomes pig food and pig that ate cattle becomes cattle food. NOt a good chain.

Also, we ban the use of certain pesticides in the US, then export those pesticides, and import the food raised with them. Nice chain FDA!

Scary stuff in here, and a lot of good resources in the appendices, though the thrust of this book could have been accomplished in half the pages.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a nutshell:

The corporate factory farm food system that dominates so much of North American agriculture today is destructive of nearly everything it touches. It degrades the nutritional quality and taste of the food we eat, filling it with toxins and poisons, destroys family farmers and rural communities, blights the land and the environment, and tortures the living creatures it "manufactures" in its dark, satanic barns (to paraphrase William Blake). Its future products may prove to be genetic or micro-mechanical horrors, inflicting new plagues upon an unprepared world. And the only entities who seem to truly benefit from this system are a tiny group of already-wildly-rich corporations and their executives, and those, including our politicians, who have been coopted by them. It is the product of their brains and their ideologies, not the result of any inexorable "invisible hand" of economic fate. It is unscientific, unnatural, and for ordinaty citizens ought to be unacceptable.

Bottom line:

Grow a garden. Buy local. And pay attention to the food that goes into your mouth!

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read and fairly well done. Some of the nutritional information is out of date, but the rest of the book has held up well in the 8 years since it was published. The book begins with an amusing anecdote of the author's first encounter with a grocery store tomato and continues with a litany of problems with how our food is raised, processed, selected and sold. I don't think I would have organized the book the way he did, but it wasn't distracting. He does a pretty good job covering the major food atrocities challenging our system today. His solutions are the usual- garden, save your food, use heirloom seeds, buy food at farmer's markets, avoid GMOs, join a CSA, don't buy inferior grocery store junk, etc.

Overall, I thought it was well done and a good primer for the uninitiated with some humor thrown in to make the series talk palatable.

[Stephanie Downard · Rating 3 out of 5]

The End of Food was a very enlightening read. There were many studies that show how the food industry has gone from an art form to a disaster due to big corporations in North America. This book has given me more knowledge on how the produce section of the food industry works, which is really written about.

At times this book did scare me and made even eating less desirable. I have always thought a tomato would be a healthy choice to eat, but The End of Food gave me a real glimpse into how even produce is not very healthy for the human body anymore. I liked this book because it has made me more aware of all the things that go into food. It even makes me wonder where the statistics would be if the same studies were conducted over the next five years.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sadly this book is 10 years old and things appear to be even worse now than they were then. And the book is dismal leaving the reader feeling hopeless until near the very end. There has of course been a rise of organic popularity and the GMO fight continues but industrialization of our food continues to accelerate. A very gripping and interesting book even if it leaves you in a foul defeated mood.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End of Food really makes you think about our food supply and how safe it is. It also investigates the way industrial farming is affecting the taste and nutrients in our food. Did you ever wonder why that tomato you buy in the grocery store doesn't taste the same as one from your garden? This book explains it and will make you want to grow more of your own food.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing particularly new is presented by this book. Most of the book reads like a doomsday tale. There is little offered in the way of a practical suggestions for change in the corporate food production systems. If you're from the United States reading this book, note that the author is Canadian and many of the references are to Canadian studies.

[Paddy Dalton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts well with lots of interesting facts and research that are shocking yet not surprising. I found the book became a bit "preachy" towards the middle and end and there wasn't much useful or insightful information about the solutions.

[Maranda Carvell Griffiths · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a terribly exciting read, but full of useful information. If it hadn't been required for school I likely wouldn't have finished it. Which is too bad, because there it's full of information about agriculture that people should know.... but i fell asleep three times reading it.

[Arash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certain facts and ideas are repeated often in different chapters to a point that different chapters sounds the same.
However, it is still quite thought provoking to read and it's fairly easy to read; although some of the repeated arguments do slow you down somewhat.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my Writing

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

I now have an irresistable urge to plant a garden!

[Abby]

Just started - pretty good so far. Lots about food history - ie. the human food evolution and it's impact on everything.

[Wealhtheow]

Why yes, I am terrified of agribusiness and monocultures, why do you ask?

[Armatstorage]

Has some great info. Didn't get to read all of it, but would be good to own.