The End of Food

by Paul Roberts

Salmonella-tainted tomatoes, riots, and skyrocketing prices are only the latest in a series of food-related crises that have illuminated the failures of the modern food system. In The End of Food, Paul Roberts investigates this system and presents a startling truth—how we make, market, and transport our food is no longer compatible with the billions of consumers the system was built to serve.

The emergence of large-scale and efficient food production forever changed our relationship with food and ultimately left a vulnerable and paradoxical system in place. High-volume factory systems create new risks for food-borne illness; high-yield crops generate grain, produce, and meat of declining nutritional quality; and while nearly a billion people are overweight, roughly as many people are starving. In this vivid narrative, Roberts presents clear, stark visions of the future and helps us prepare to make the necessary decisions to survive the demise of food production as we know it.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Health, Science, Agriculture, Economics, Environment

390 pages, Hardcover

First published March 21, 2008

About the author

I'm a journalist and author of three books, most recently, The Impulse Society: America in an Age of Instant Gratification. My work focuses on the evolving relationship between the marketplace and the Self and touches on issues ranging from technology obsessions to the politics of narcissism. Earlier works have explored the energy economy and the food industry. I live with my family in Washington State.

Reviews

[JD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though you could say that the book is dated (first published in 2008), it still is a great read to see what the modern food system looks like and brings to bear all it's shortcomings and the crisis it still faces today. The book is broken down into the many problems it has, from food born diseases, starvation and obesity, the unfairness of Fairtrade and the role that supermarket chains and fast food restaurants play, to name but a few. The author also goes into great detail about the many opinions of how to change the current food models and how all of these are also unsustainable, from organic to buying local.

Being a farmer and having worked in the UK and EU in the food industry before, I have seen how the food system works and how it is not right. The big supermarkets is the main culprits in this saga as they dictate the price they pay to farmers and what they ask the consumers and governments around the world are not doing enough to curb their expansion as they grow only stronger. I can rant for hours about this as it is something I am passionate about.

This is one of those book that one has to read to understand what is happening as it is filled with many facts. The fact of the matter is that the world is in trouble when it comes to food security as everyone knows and the responsibility lies with each and everyone of us to change our way of eating to create a more sustainable food system and for supermarkets to be more fair when paying and charging the right prices both ways in the food chain. Highly recommended book!!

[Books Ring Mah Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eating. A simple pleasure we take for granted. Well, not anymore thanks to this book.

In treating food as a commodity, we have opened a Pandora's box of sorts. Our global food economy is literally on the brink of disaster. Disaster that can not only cause our food prices to rise, but cause thousands more to starve and die.

Never happen in the year 2008, you say? According to the scientists, that scenario is very possible. As the pressure to increase production and profit continues, we rely on technology and science to help us out. Will it save us or hurt us? Think of the impact on our food supply with natural disasters, border conflicts and so on. Here in the United States, we import a lot of what we eat. (How do you like that melamine milk, folks?)

Here's some food for thought as you sit down to dinner:
Starvation
Unfair trade
Salmonella
E. coli
Avain flu
Mad Cow
Pesticides
Fertilizers
Monsanto!
Food allergies
Genetically manipulated food
Meatpacking practices
Erosion (no soil, no crops)
Deforesting

I'm off to the farmer's market.
(local. organic. and sadly, expensive)

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good book, better written than many. It would have more power if the author wasn't making a career out of "The end of ___" as titles for books. It forces him to make things seem more dire than they are, and when things ACTUALLY ARE quite dire, his authority is easier to question. b/c he’s cultivated a livelihood writing about doomsday scenarios, he’s hard to read objectively.

but there is a LOT of good info and research in this book. HE makes the good point that for all the concern about terrorists attacking the food system, the system is actually attacking itself. there are certain cancers that only afflict farming regions.

Only in the last 5 pages does he talk about the actual political processes and nefarious intertwinings of gov’t officials, policies and board memberships/ lobbysists that have made the breakdown of the food system possible. And yet that shitstorm is really the crux of how decisions are made and how what is evil, unsustainable and dangerous becomes legal and de rigeur.

Other examples of good info in the book: every new american baby translates into 1.7 acres of lost farm land. maize has twice the amount of genes as humans. salmonella can survive/ endure 85 proof scotch.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End of Food offers a deeper look at the global food system than any previous book I have read. At times it reminded me of Confessions of an Economic Hitman and The Omnivore's Dilemma combined into one. Mixing solid writing with a behind the scenes look at the geo-political systems that control our food, Paul Roberts describes the harsh reality of the food system being pushed to the edge. With detailed citations and succinct analysis, Roberts fills in the details where The Omnivore's Dilemma left them out.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand our food system and how it will be shaping our lives in the future.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you'll see from my recent reading lists, I've been reading several books on food and sustainability. By the time I got around to The End of Food, much of the information in it seemed very familiar, given that I've also spent some of my reading time during each of the past several years on the subject. In fact, I more or less skimmed the book, since it needed to go back to the library. But I would recommend it to someone who is just getting started on this subject. Perhaps you saw the documentaries Food, Inc. and King Corn and would like to know more context and history. This would be a good reference.

Roberts has done a lot of research and puts it together clearly. Although he doesn't make much effort to be entertaining, his work is quite readable. Beginning with our ancestor Australopithecus, not even a hunter-gatherer but simply a gatherer (and scavenger of carcasses left by larger hunting animals), Roberts traces the history of how humans have fed themselves up to the present. I learned that for hundreds of years in Europe, the daily condition of the vast majority of people was hunger, and famines were not unusual. This only really ended with the widespread importation of food from North America, South America, and Australia. Most of the food-growing and stockraising practices we are beginning to question were not thought up by Satanic profiteers, but arose from the laudable effort to feed more of the world's people. This doesn't mean that change is not necessary, and Roberts explains why.

If you want to read one book which will give you the information to think intelligently on the subject of food production and distribution and its effect on the world today, and then make up your own mind about how you want to change your own habits, I would recommend this book. If you'd like a little more guidance and philosophy, I'd recommend The Way We Eat, which I'll also review here.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was tricky to rate. The information was well-presented and very important, but this was not a book I "liked". It was a book that made me think, and worry, and question-- but it was dry at times and relied a lot on "what-if" situations. Roberts carefully navigated the boundary of shock reporting and delivered a fairly balanced view of current and future food supply issues. You will be terrified, angry, sad and maybe a little grossed-out, but you should read this book.

[Tate Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

“For thousands of years, food has mirrored society. It provided the substance and ideas that brought forth civilization, as well as the mechanisms by which civilization now seems to be taking itself apart. At the start of the twenty-first century, we are closer to that precipice than we have ever been, yet perhaps more capable, ultimately, of stepping away. Hunger has always been an invitation to make a better world, and it remains so.”








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🌟4/5🌟 It’s been a minute since I’ve written a review as my last few reads have just been okay - no strong feelings that left me inspired to do anything but continue onto the next. But as you all know, any book touching on topics within the food industry is an automatic yes for me. While this book was published over a decade ago - and thus was a tad outdated at times - the issues pressing the industry remain the same, if anything these issues have amplified. My background being in environmental and natural resource economics, none of the points really came as a surprise but rather this book served as a reminder of why I feel so strongly and almost never shut up about the future of food. Even if you have no economic/resource background I would highly recommend this book as a good intro as the author clearly explains the rippling effects of current issues and potential solutions without getting sidetracked - any also explains lingo without talking down to readers. Throughout this book the author discussed a hypothetical future pandemic so I would be highly interested in getting an updated version post Covid - so Paul Roberts, consider this my formal request for the End of Food 2.0.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every human on the planet should read this book, and Savor by Thich Nhat Hanh. These two books, if read and comprehended by every person, would change our world. Really. They should be required reading for a healthier planet...heck...just so we HAVE a planet!

[Nancy Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would be a 5 star but has a couple of what I consider huge gaps, namely, the gross inhumanity of CAFOs. He does discuss the Animal Liberation Front, the radical fringe of a movement to treat animals more humanely, but factory farming has glaring cruelties that, when brought to light, horrify even the most utilitarian rational minds.
The other neglected elephant in the room was overpopulation. The author repeatedly stresses the need to produce more food, more efficiently, to feed a burgeoning population, but never addresses possible solutions for slowing down this environmental catastrophe.
Really just deserves 3 stars for not addressing these issues, but what's there is quality writing and tons of interesting information, so well worth reading.

[Sean Goh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated (written in 2008), and the back half was not particularly interesting. This was an upstream read from Farmegeddon, should have just stuck to that book.

___
It is within this gap, between food as an economic proposition and food as a biological phenomenon, that today's biggest challenges arise.

Tomorrow's farmers will be trying to feed more people without the benefit of three critical advantages their predeccessors took for granted - cheap energy, abundant water, and a stable climate.

Machines are not made to harvest crops, crops must be designed to be harvested by machine.

Because the largest input for agriculture is land, farmers cope with falling prices by increasing production to reduce unit cost by spreading out the fixed cost of land. This naturally increases supply and depresses price even more.

Food processing companies make their money by 'adding value', or processing raw inputs into their products. This changes their game compared to producers of raw commodities.

Cans and other packaging make up the food industry's second biggest cost, after labour.

Because chickens are slaughtered as juveniles, their bones are still soft, so when they're cooked, the bones often leak a blood-red and quite unattractive fluid into the surrounding muscle (TIL).

Of the ten million calories our average human consumed in a decade, only 1,700 of them might wind up as unnecessary padding. The body is programmed to do automatically what none of us could do consciously.
Unfortunately because our ancestors were more likely to encounter scarcity rather than abundance, our system is biased towards overconsumption.

So many of the traditional limits on food consumption - three meals a day, or the requirement of eating as a family or group at set times - were dictated in large part by cooks, who main interest was minimising their workload and whose monopoly over cooking tools and knowledge gave them much authority over when and how often people ate.
As such people didn't necessarily eat when they felt hunger, they ate when there was food available.

There is a lot of money to be made in feeding both oversized stomaches and and feeding those enterprises selling fixes for oversized stomaches. And both industries depend upon a prevalence of obesity.

Although we tend to think of trade as transactions between nations, trade today is better understood as deals between private companies - deals whose benefits may or may not accrue to the nations in which they occur.

The average four-ounce burget patty contains tissue from fifty-five separate cows, some had tissue from more than a thousand animals.

Cows are very inefficient at converting feed to meat. After accounting for the inedible bits (bone, organ, hide), it takes 20 pounds of grain to make a pound of beef (4.5 and 7.3 for chickens and pigs). 90% of the grain eaten by Americans in 2008 is in the form of meat and dairy.

Nearly all transgenic crops are planted in just 6 countries (US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, China and South Africa) due to purchasing power. That is also why just four crops (Corn, canola, cotton and soybean) and two traits (herbicide tolerance and pest resistance) account for 99% of transgenic crops planted worldwide (as at 2008). It's a matter of return on investment.

Ultimately, the real obstacle between where our food system is and where it needs to go isn't the challenge of boosting food supplies but of reducing food demand, especially for meat.

[Alexandra P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far easier to read than The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World since the sheer amount of raw information in that book made enjoying it extremely hard, from my point of view, The End of Food is one of the books that may be life changing.
Firstly,it explores food from all perspectives: historically, from the hunter tribes to the food industry nowadays, economically,with a focus on the US food industry, ecologically (or morally), touching the sensitive subject of GMOs and animal rights activists, biologically, explaining not only about the formation of the feeling of fullness, but also the evolutionary cause of this, and from many other points of view, such as the chapter treating the newest research on this field.
Secondly, I personally loved the beginning of each chapter which comprised of a topic-related story, many blending captivating descriptive and narrative phrases, creating a very real image in one's head. I personally found the description of a chicken and what happens to its meat extremely disturbing (no, there is not one attempt to militate for vegetarianism - or I did not find it).
All in all, I would recommend this book not only for those interested in the whereabouts of the food industry, but also for the people trying to find out general facts about food, and people who would like to know how and why the food they eat ends up on their plates.

[Holly Booms Walsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a scary look at the current and future consequences of modern food production and the global market. The footnotes take up fourty pages in themselves. This author has read and digested and documented everythign there is out there on the current statistics, problems, and trends in food production. He discusses disease, land overuse, global trade, food production methods and dangers, genetic engineering, marketing that promotes over-processing of foodstuffs, and just about every other aspect you can think of. Unlike Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, he doesn't provide any answers or levity - jsut grim awareness of the plight. If you want to read a book that doesn't pull its punches and will get you buy local, buy organic, cook simply, and stop eating processed foods, this will do it - if you can keep reading ot the end. It is so dense I read it in ten minute a day bursts.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this lucid yet expansive tome, Paul Roberts probes all the ills and externalities pushing our global food system to the brink of collapse. The pressure to constantly reduce the bottom line in industrial food production has generated unprecedented risks: environmental degredation from exhaustive water, pesticide and fertilizer use, the rise of food-borne illnesses (hits home during this current swine flu epidemic), and an increasingly obsese First World while sub-Saharan Africa can't get enough to eat.

As the gulf between the Monsantos and pure locavores of the world widens, Roberts advocates a sensible middle ground, where medium-sized farms become more sustainable and less mono-crop, where no-till farmers who still use herbicides aren't demonized by the organic counter-establishment.

[W.J. Gunning · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must read for all who eat. Paul Roberts shows clearly how the modern food economy is no longer safe for the billions it feeds. The historical and political context that has resulted in this current situation are explained. The book was first published in 2008 when the current studies by Seralini and Thai researchers which clearly show the relationship of glyphosate, GMO's and human cancers were not available. Both these studies however add further weight to the conclusions of this book that new and more sustainable ways of producing and marketing food are urgent before our current system creates a catastrophic situation or simply fails because of the inherent weakness of its structures.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is disturbing on so many levels! It's very well researched and very well written and makes me want to start my own farm. Certainly a must read for anyone who shops at a grocery store or eats out--which is pretty much everyone.

[Jonathon Crump · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely good and comprehensive critique and warning of our modern food economy. I appreciated Roberts’ writing style and his moments of narratives and recounting his interviews and experiences. This book could have been stodgily academic but instead it was fairly lively except for a few slow sections. I do wish Roberts had included a few more timeless sources rather than merely citing the most immediate research. The book has aged for sure but it still remains prophetic (i.e. discussion of food safety and avian flu are very much on the forefront of our minds and headlines). The beginning of the book, in which Roberts traces humanity’s history with food, could be excerpted on its own. That section was brilliant and so helpful.

[Joel Tone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don’t read it. I can sum it up in one word: DOOM.

This book explores the current system of food production as it has moved from the western world and is currently moving into the developing world. As food has become more available, food production has become more specialized and more cutthroat. Profit margins keep getting cut all along the chain so that it becomes necessary to produce more volume of higher value products which leads to pushing the system well past its tolerances for safety and sustainability. The system will fail dramatically – whether it’s due to an epidemic, climate change, an economic crisis, or some other factor. There is no hope or solution, we’re all going to die when the system finally collapses.

It’s this total lack of even a glimmer of hope that I found most peculiar about this book. Usually the author has some kind of solution, however impractical and fanciful it may be. To his credit, the author doesn’t seem to delight in our certain doom.

The more I read, the harder I found it difficult to take this book seriously. If we’re all inevitably doomed (even the survivalists are included) then what’s the point? He doesn’t say so explicitly but it seems that the purpose of this book is that after the crisis comes and most of the population is wiped out, the survivors will be able to look at this book and tell each other that this guy saw it coming.

From spiked’s review:

What isn’t entirely clear to me is why the book was written, other than to make its readers anxious – or rather, to appeal to a generalized sense of anxiety that already exists. The book seeks to throw up terrible scenarios that might occur, but rather than suggesting that society might innovate around these emerging problems to develop something better, the assumption seems to be that big corporations will buy off our useless political leaders or that the technical problems we face are simply insurmountable. — Rob Lyons

Really, don’t read this book. The only reason to read it is if you’re deeply pessimistic and want confirmation that the human race is doomed. Go listen to a TED talk where problems are faced with courage and resourcefulness. Go plant a tree or a garden. If this book is right, our society is doomed no matter what we do and if it’s wrong the solutions are going to come through thoughtful action and not from pessimistic navel gazing.

[Sohaib Qureshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for anyone who is curious about the advantages and shortcomings of our present day food system. Roberts really did his research when writing this book. The book includes narratives from people involved in the food production industry from all parts of the world including; France, Japan, Kenya, Canada, China and the US. Roberts paints a grim picture of today's industrial food system. Explained in the book in detail is how subsidies by various governments undercut and often usurp local food systems in foreign lands.

He also explains in detail why the so called "Green Revolution" technologies which allowed developed countries like the US, Canada and China to produce cheap food at a truly massive global scale did not work well for sub Saharan Africa and other developing nations. Discussed also is the role of multi-national companies like Nestle and Kellogg who spend more money on processing and packaging food products then is spent on the food itself.

The frailties of our modern day food system are discussed in detail. Outbreaks of avian flu and other infectious diseases, loss of diversity and mono-cop culture are all discussed from various viewpoints in the book. The last chapter of the book introduces some possible solutions to our food problems as we run up against our technological and the biological limits of food production to feed an ever growing population.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly and highly recommend this book.

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as entertaining or as engaging as Michael Pollan or Joanna Blythman this is an interesting, if Amero-centric, look at food and the food industry as it stands and it's race to the bottom.

This was an interesting book to read while Ireland had another food crisis, where industrial grade (read cheap) oil was added to pig feed (loaded with dioxins), potentially causing a lot of problems for purchasers, producers and farmers. Much of this type of thing was discussed in this book and some of the issues that caused it were raised.

It's a book many people need to read and ask themselves about their relationship with their food, unlike some other it doesn't offer any solutions, just questions and there were places where it just lost me in a sea of data. If I was asked to recommend a book on this topic I'd be less likely to recommend this and more likely to recommend Pollan or Blythman.

[Auggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best food-related books I've read in a while. Packed with tons of facts about a huge range of food-related topics, this book somehow still managed to be an easy-reading page-turner.

It looks at the current food system - how produce and animals are treated as a commodity with the highest concern being expense, not nutrition or safety - and delves into how that affects the world. Everything from grain prices, international trade, world hunger, pandemics and consumer health are discussed. It's fantastic and my copy is so flagged with Post-It notes that it looks like I've tried to give it ruffles.

[Garrett]

Roberts seems to have a more global view than Michael Pollan's writing in books such as "The Omnivore's Dilemma". I appreciated the quote at the end of urban planner John Thacktra regarding urban sprawl, "'Out of control' is an ideology, not a fact" and how it also applies to the state of the way we eat today.

Also this book was written in 2008, give me the 15 year anniversary updated version.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This was very interesting but I felt 2008 was a bit out of date. So stopped reading very early on. I remember when, in Australia, apples went powdery and tomatoes boring. After a number of years, probably because people complained and didn't buy as much, the produce dramatically picked up in quality. Not sure what's happening in North America.

[Ren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly composed, this is factual history of the food industry leading to a poignant theory for a future revolution in food science and consumption. a must read if you plan on feeding your mouth regardless of what side you're on!

[Doris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed and frequently frightening examination of the modern industrialized food chain.

[Thomas Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was well researched, but there were problems with the presentation of information, and it just was not an enjoyable read. Many similar books outlining major international problems of the Capitalist system are enjoyable. It's not the content; it's the delivery.

The problems presented of the global food system are large and numerous with not much offered in the ways of solutions. The author presents some successful alternatives, such as the memorable description of ducks and rice farming in Japan. Capitalism is often cited as being at the core of the issue (and truly it is the issue); however, the author seems to only seek solutions within the status quo suggesting lobbying government while dismissing radical social-justice acts, which are clearly only pursued because lobbying has already failed in the face of corruption and the revolving door between industry, politicians, and health and safety bodies like the FDA (also well presented by the author so his conclusion seems illogical).

The scope of the problems presented are difficult to understand in the way they're presented. They are explained well -- the topic and amount of writing dedicated just felt too voluminous to process comfortably. More than any book I've read this year, I found myself struggling to understand the content, where I am as culpable as the writer and editors.

This was written from an extremely entrenched colonial, Westernized, American, and cult Democrat point of view. Due to the heavy propaganda regarding other countries within American society, it might be easy to accept claims and throwaway lines on topics about how Cuba's system was successful (but still not really acceptable), or about how Haiti is "the region's perennial basket case" (without explaining France's responsibility or America's multiple coups and occupations of that country), or repeatedly claiming China's food production is unsafe with lines like "border inspectors to help stem the flow of poor quality food imports from China." However, outside of this American propaganda bubble, readers do not accept these claims so readily, they are viewed critically, and quite frankly they weird us out and cause us to lose faith in the credibility of any of the information presented.

China is presented so repeatedly as a scapegoat or as though it's common knowledge that their food is low quality and dangerous, it does come to feel like cultish messaging. But not all of your readers are cult members. An excellent job has been done outlining the dangers of the American food-production system here. So why are we presenting America as the safe standard and China as the country with dangerous food exports? Perhaps consumers in other countries see it in the opposite way. Perhaps Chinese people see it that way. I DO see it that way.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Monsanto's of this world aren't phylantropists. For them it is not about what is healthy or even ethical. It's not about reducing hunger in the world.
For them it all comes down to return on investment.

We should really keep this in mind when we make our little personal everyday decisions on what to eat.

p 261
(...) once you have a chemical accepted by the market, you spend most of your time working to expand the geography of the crops that can use it. What this means is that companies looking to maximize the return on the money they've already sunk into a chore chemical, (...), can be expected to choose seed traits that support that chemical and that can be inserted into the most widely planted commercial crops, such as corn and soybeans.

p 262
Genetically modified crops (...) were created to 'reduce input and labor costs in large-scale production systems, not to feed the developing world or increase food quality'.

On food miles
p 286
(...) the shipping of food from the farm to the grocery accounts for, on average, just 2 percent of that product's total environmental inmpact. Far more significant contributors are the way the food is processed, packaged, and especially the way it is farmed, becauxe modern agriculture and livestock methods rely so heavily on energy-intensive and ecologically dubious fertilizers, irrigated water, and imported grain.
To capture this complexity, many sustainablility advocates want to replace food miles with the more detailed ecological footprint concept, which tries to account for all of the costs of a particular food product - usually expressed in the number of theorectical acres needed to generate all the materials, energy, plant matter, and other inputs necessary for making and moving a particular food product.
This point was made succinctly when local-food advocates in the UK complained about the practice of importing meat and dairy products from New Zealand. In response, researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand showed that because New Zealand farmers use far less fertilizer than their counterparts in the UK do and because New Zealand sheep feed almost entirely on grass wheras UK livestock are mainly grain-fed, consumers in the UK importing New Zealand mutton and dairy products actually cut energy use and climate impacts bij 75 and 50 percent, respectively, over locally produced items.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book definitely has an agenda, but was packed with interesting information about the production of food and the supply chains that keep supermarkets filled with food. And the description of a system that may be on the brink of collapse. One thing I think should have been included but was not was a discussion of how our pollinators are in danger from habitat loss, climate change, and the heavy use of pesticides. There are parts of China with such high residues of pesticides that bees are locally extinct and the farmers must hand-pollinate their fruit trees. In Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis, there was an interesting discussion of how colony collapse disorder may be more of a response to shipping bees around the county to pollinate huge monocultures than an actual disease. I actually think this is at least as much of a danger to our food supply as the things discussed in the book, because while our principal cereal grains are wind-pollinated, most of our vegetable, fruit, and nut producing plants require pollinators to produce at all. Of the ones that can self-pollinate, they will do so only as a last resort and will experience a severe reduction in both yield and quantity. If a reduction in meat consumption (as advocated by this book) is to be at all successful, we've got to get serious about protecting our pollinators. This issue needs a great deal more attention than it's gotten, and I think a book like this should have included it.

I also think some more of the issues surrounding organic agriculture should have been discussed, as well as the increasing loss of genetic diversity among our food crops and animals. The loss of pollinators and the continued loss of genetic diversity are at least as large of a threat to the current system as anything discussed in the book, but they weren't discussed at all. That's not to say the issues described in the book aren't serious, because they are, but simply that there are even more problems that are every bit as serious in the long run that also need to be discussed.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It should have come as no surprise that a book whose title begins with "The End Of" would be full of doom and gloom...
This is an in-depth look at global food production and distribution, from who profits (spoiler alert -it isn't the farmer), to land usage, water shortages, transgenic technology, productivity and the means used to accomplish the productivity along with their side effects, obesity and famine, vegetable, mineral, protein, etc, etc, etc.
Published in 2008, it is now dated, but still valid. This year Canada released a new food guide heavy on the plant based protein, with no meat or dairy in sight. This was a direction the author states must be taken, but did not believe would happen, due to political lobbying by producers and marketing boards. Well, here we are. After reading this book, I do have a better understanding of the reasoning behind this recommendation.
All in all, I am more determined than ever to continue sourcing my food from non-global distribution options. I personally know the people who grow my vegetables and dried beans, honey, eggs and pork using organic, sustainable methods. Likewise my beef is from a local rancher, grass fed and never comes near a feed lot or processing plant. While eating this way may take a bit more effort on my part than running over to the grocery store and picking up a package of some highly processed foodstuff does, I can honestly say it is cheaper and tastes better. I will admit it did take some time to adapt to eating with the seasons though.
The author summarizes his thoughts in this way "the debate over organic versus synthetic, or agribusiness versus family farm, or local versus global; the debate over nutrition and obesity, over food safety, and over food security - all need to be pulled from the shadows of advocacy politics and industry lobbies and exposed to the full light of a truly public process."

[Ashlie aka The Cheerbrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Roberts has provided an incredibly in depth and comprehensive study of food systems in the modern age. He has charted the progress and missteps that have taken place from the time of farmers and pre-industrialization to our present day globalized food world. From our front yard gardens to increasingly manufactured products and technology, there is a lot of ground to cover. Overall, Roberts painted a pretty dire picture for the future of food and food access.

I picked up this book as it is the April book club pick for the Chicago chapter of Slow Food. I am a proud member of the Slow Food movement, currently serving on the Board of Directors of Slow Food Chicago and previously serving as a board member of the North Louisiana chapter. As such, I would say I am in the know regarding the broad strokes of Robert's tale, but I still learned a lot and would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about our modern relationship to food. I think it will provide many vantage points for conversation at our book club meeting.

With the praise clearly declared first, I now must say that this is a book that I would say I survived rather than read. I undertook the audio version and the fellow doing the reading had a monotonous delivery that wasn't terribly engaging.  And this book is dizzyingly dense. So, so dense. I'd recommend picking it up in chunks rather than trying to power through. There was some definite glazed eye commuting going on for me. This is a less of a critique of the book, and more of a testimony to how sometimes reading non-fiction for me is taking my medicine I still highly recommend this book.

[Denise Kawaii · Rating 5 out of 5]

The End of Food isn't quite the doomsday rag that you think it's going to be. Paul Roberts does a great job of showing both the positives and negatives of differing food production models, the disproportionate powers driving our current food models, and the unfortunate truth that technology may not be enough to keep up with our global population explosions.

On the one hand, I feel cemented in my personal decision to change my eating habits, increasing my own small farm plot to serve my community and continuing to focus on working within the confines of nature's guidelines for food. On the other hand, I feel like my efforts are small in the face of the global food crisis.

If you are interested at all in agribusiness, organic farming, or simply want a better view of the choices available to you where your food is concerned, Robert's book is a great supplement to your other research.