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Food Fight: GMOs and the Future of the American Diet
Are GMOs really that bad? A prominent environmental journalist takes a fresh look at what they actually mean for our food system and for us.
In the past two decades, GMOs have come to dominate the American diet. Advocates hail them as the future of food, an enhanced method of crop breeding that can help feed an ever-increasing global population and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Critics, meanwhile, call for their banishment, insisting GMOs were designed by overeager scientists and greedy corporations to bolster an industrial food system that forces us to rely on cheap, unhealthy, processed food so they can turn an easy profit. In response, health-conscious brands such as Trader Joe's and Whole Foods have started boasting that they are "GMO-free," and companies like Monsanto have become villains in the eyes of average consumers.
Where can we turn for the truth? Are GMOs an astounding scientific breakthrough destined to end world hunger? Or are they simply a way for giant companies to control a problematic food system?
Environmental writer McKay Jenkins traveled across the country to answer these questions and discovered that the GMO controversy is more complicated than meets the eye. He interviewed dozens of people on all sides of the debate--scientists hoping to engineer new crops that could provide nutrients to people in the developing world, Hawaiian papaya farmers who credit GMOs with saving their livelihoods, and local farmers in Maryland who are redefining what it means to be "sustainable." The result is a comprehensive, nuanced examination of the state of our food system and a much-needed guide for consumers to help them make more informed choices about what to eat for their next meal.
In the past two decades, GMOs have come to dominate the American diet. Advocates hail them as the future of food, an enhanced method of crop breeding that can help feed an ever-increasing global population and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Critics, meanwhile, call for their banishment, insisting GMOs were designed by overeager scientists and greedy corporations to bolster an industrial food system that forces us to rely on cheap, unhealthy, processed food so they can turn an easy profit. In response, health-conscious brands such as Trader Joe's and Whole Foods have started boasting that they are "GMO-free," and companies like Monsanto have become villains in the eyes of average consumers.
Where can we turn for the truth? Are GMOs an astounding scientific breakthrough destined to end world hunger? Or are they simply a way for giant companies to control a problematic food system?
Environmental writer McKay Jenkins traveled across the country to answer these questions and discovered that the GMO controversy is more complicated than meets the eye. He interviewed dozens of people on all sides of the debate--scientists hoping to engineer new crops that could provide nutrients to people in the developing world, Hawaiian papaya farmers who credit GMOs with saving their livelihoods, and local farmers in Maryland who are redefining what it means to be "sustainable." The result is a comprehensive, nuanced examination of the state of our food system and a much-needed guide for consumers to help them make more informed choices about what to eat for their next meal.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2017
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831 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
November 1, 2016
I won a free copy of this book from Goodreads First Reads.
To give a frame of reference for my review, I entered the giveaway because I knew basically nothing about GMO other than it was very contentious issue with lots of scary sounding but not very science based claims on one side and not much of an answer in my mind from the other side. Basically, GMO seemed to me an accelerated version of nature so what was the big deal, but not something I wanted to wade into a morass of crazy. Frankly, I classed it up there nearly with the anti vax crowd on supporting science. But this book promised a balanced look so I thought it would be a good way to get better up to speed on this hot topic.
It more than delivered. The book isn't really about GMOs because the problem isn't really GMOs. Instead it is the system that creates and fosters them. Americans have industrialized food, it is about profit maximizing crops with biggest yields and biggest markets. GMO food helps achieve these goals but also leads to pesticide use and bad land management partly by design and partly by its how its done mentality. Big companies like Monsanto might actually be horrible world citizens but it is not because of GMO corn and soybeans. Its because they spray crazy combination and amounts of pesticides near schools and refuse to stop or explain what they have sprayed. GMO food isn't about only maximizing profit and weed spray resistance, or at least it doesn't have to mean only that. It can be adding a gene to save a papaya from a blight and an entire industry on which lots of poor families survive in Hawaii.
Really this book says I was right GMOs aren't that much different from natural selection, but that I was wrong because that isn't the question we should be discussing. The callbacks to the potato famine are annoying mainly because the famine had much more to do with British imperial policy than a food shortage or silly Irish farmers going with a single crop. All the more disappointing because the parallel trying to make is improved when the government action pieces are compared. Otherwise, easy to read and engaging. Feel I learned a lot and learned what the real questions should be rather than the ones that make the news.
To give a frame of reference for my review, I entered the giveaway because I knew basically nothing about GMO other than it was very contentious issue with lots of scary sounding but not very science based claims on one side and not much of an answer in my mind from the other side. Basically, GMO seemed to me an accelerated version of nature so what was the big deal, but not something I wanted to wade into a morass of crazy. Frankly, I classed it up there nearly with the anti vax crowd on supporting science. But this book promised a balanced look so I thought it would be a good way to get better up to speed on this hot topic.
It more than delivered. The book isn't really about GMOs because the problem isn't really GMOs. Instead it is the system that creates and fosters them. Americans have industrialized food, it is about profit maximizing crops with biggest yields and biggest markets. GMO food helps achieve these goals but also leads to pesticide use and bad land management partly by design and partly by its how its done mentality. Big companies like Monsanto might actually be horrible world citizens but it is not because of GMO corn and soybeans. Its because they spray crazy combination and amounts of pesticides near schools and refuse to stop or explain what they have sprayed. GMO food isn't about only maximizing profit and weed spray resistance, or at least it doesn't have to mean only that. It can be adding a gene to save a papaya from a blight and an entire industry on which lots of poor families survive in Hawaii.
Really this book says I was right GMOs aren't that much different from natural selection, but that I was wrong because that isn't the question we should be discussing. The callbacks to the potato famine are annoying mainly because the famine had much more to do with British imperial policy than a food shortage or silly Irish farmers going with a single crop. All the more disappointing because the parallel trying to make is improved when the government action pieces are compared. Otherwise, easy to read and engaging. Feel I learned a lot and learned what the real questions should be rather than the ones that make the news.
June 14, 2017
I learned that GMOs are not harmful (just speeded up natural selection), but the spray that is doused upon some has been determined carcinogenic. There are fewer and fewer kinds of corn, tomatoes, et .al. The creators of new crops are interested in high yield foods that are long lasting/durable, not in flavor and/or variety. GMO seeds are patented so farmers must dispose of seeds after the season is over and buy them again next season. A non GMO farmer had GMO seeds blow over onto his farm. The creators said he had to pay for that seed he did not plant. It went all the way to the Supreme Court and the farmer was determined responsible for having the seed! Farmland quality is being depleted by GMO farming.
page 264
"A 32 year study conducted by Rodale Institute found that chemical-dependent farming may outyield organic farming during good years, but over the long haul (and especially during drought years), organic systems, with their vastly healthier soils, outyeild conventional systems. Organic farming also reduces the use of fossil energy by about 30% and significantly improves the organic matter of the soil itself.
But comparing yields--pretty much the only metric that 'conventional' farmers like to use--is a puny way to think about the optimal way to grow food. So is 'convenience,' the other word industry uses to pitch processed food."
pages 212-213
"...The way we grow our food is part of a much larger problem in the way we treat our land, our water, and our climate.
''There are too many of us but our consumption is rapacious...It is legal to rip the tops off mountains, get the coal and burn it. It is legal to engage in fracking that threatens groundwater to get natural gas and burn it. It is legal to have our soils erode and toxic chemical applied, legal to allow our rural communities to decline and watch so much of our cultural seed stock disappear.' [Jackson}
Jackson places much of the blame for this state of affairs on what he calls the 'industrial hero,' the scientist (or more broadly, the corporation) claiming to have high-tech, silver bullet answers to highly complex problems."
page 202
"'Our research aims are to improve the sustainability of agriculture, to improve the strength of plants to do as much of the work as possible, as opposed to using insecticides and fungicides,' Carrington said. 'These are not organic versus conventional issues. These are universal issues. We just happen to include GMO in the toolbox. It is not a panacea, and it is not the only tool in the toolbox. It is just one of dozens. But removing that tool we do at our own peril. We don't gain anything; we actually lose the ability to solve a lot of important problems that affect real people.'"
page 264
"A 32 year study conducted by Rodale Institute found that chemical-dependent farming may outyield organic farming during good years, but over the long haul (and especially during drought years), organic systems, with their vastly healthier soils, outyeild conventional systems. Organic farming also reduces the use of fossil energy by about 30% and significantly improves the organic matter of the soil itself.
But comparing yields--pretty much the only metric that 'conventional' farmers like to use--is a puny way to think about the optimal way to grow food. So is 'convenience,' the other word industry uses to pitch processed food."
pages 212-213
"...The way we grow our food is part of a much larger problem in the way we treat our land, our water, and our climate.
''There are too many of us but our consumption is rapacious...It is legal to rip the tops off mountains, get the coal and burn it. It is legal to engage in fracking that threatens groundwater to get natural gas and burn it. It is legal to have our soils erode and toxic chemical applied, legal to allow our rural communities to decline and watch so much of our cultural seed stock disappear.' [Jackson}
Jackson places much of the blame for this state of affairs on what he calls the 'industrial hero,' the scientist (or more broadly, the corporation) claiming to have high-tech, silver bullet answers to highly complex problems."
page 202
"'Our research aims are to improve the sustainability of agriculture, to improve the strength of plants to do as much of the work as possible, as opposed to using insecticides and fungicides,' Carrington said. 'These are not organic versus conventional issues. These are universal issues. We just happen to include GMO in the toolbox. It is not a panacea, and it is not the only tool in the toolbox. It is just one of dozens. But removing that tool we do at our own peril. We don't gain anything; we actually lose the ability to solve a lot of important problems that affect real people.'"
August 10, 2017
Food Fight is a well-written, exceptionally balanced coverage of GMOs and their controversial place in the global diet. And it is much more, raising complex issues and challenging questions about the status and future of our entire agricultural system.
Jenkins takes the reader on a fascinating, cross-country tour of innovative farms and cutting-edge research facilities, where he interviews some of the leading thinkers in agriculture today. Their ideas and experimental practices may well transform our approaches to what we eat and how we produce it.
Jenkins is passionate about what he calls "closing the gap between people and their food." Food Fight goes a long way toward closing that gap.
Jenkins takes the reader on a fascinating, cross-country tour of innovative farms and cutting-edge research facilities, where he interviews some of the leading thinkers in agriculture today. Their ideas and experimental practices may well transform our approaches to what we eat and how we produce it.
Jenkins is passionate about what he calls "closing the gap between people and their food." Food Fight goes a long way toward closing that gap.
April 3, 2019
Everyone should read this book. Very eye opening.
July 22, 2019
I now have a headache from rolling my eyes so many times during the course of reading this.
January 8, 2023
For somebody without any real knowledge or training in the ag/food space, I found this a very enlightening read. I think this is a great read for somebody looking to learn more about not just the anti-GMO vs GMO argument, but also America’s food and farming practices as a whole. The author does a good job (in my view) of giving both sides to every argument and gives the reader many chances to make up their own mind. This was refreshing given how much stuff is polarized today. Like many other things, the GMO debate is not a black and white issue with one side having to be wrong/right. Will definitely be recommending this to people outside the industry who would like to dip their toes in the water regarding this issue.
February 23, 2020
This review is just my summary of the main points and themes that reoccurred and were important.
This book has great insight and discoverings into the true ways our food system is broken and highlights how GMOs can both help and hurt people depending on their motives. Light is also shed on some of the dangerous and detrimental effects caused by all the pesticides, herbicides and chemicals used to spray our foods and keep GMOs thriving on a large scale. Big companies and companies who produce or had a history of producing chemicals and pesticides are often the ones who produce GMOs on a large scale and have a lot of political and economic influence on our food system and the way things are regulated, sold and distributed. Almost everything in industrial farming is uniform, decisions are made behind closed doors and often the companies themselves are the ones testing their food. This allows for a lot of dishonesty. Plus their incentive is almost always profits, not the overall well being of people. From my understanding, GMOs themselves are not bad. It's the processed food made from GMO crops and industrial farming methods that are used to produce them that really wreck our health. One of the last things I took away from this book is if we want to create a future where you can know what you're buying is nutritious, made with variety and not full of pesticides and who knows what other chemicals, we need to have sustainability. We should give more to family farmers and smaller farming communities that have had a history of living off the land and know how to properly grow food and maintain a variety of healthy crops that is easy to be distributed and bought locally and is transparent to their methods. We should focus on production over multiple generations and not just the next year. Especially as climate change worsens, doing these things will be considerably more important and we will have to be more environmentally conscious than we have before.
Overall, this book was a very informative read and uncovered a lot about our food and the problems encompassing how we make it.
This book has great insight and discoverings into the true ways our food system is broken and highlights how GMOs can both help and hurt people depending on their motives. Light is also shed on some of the dangerous and detrimental effects caused by all the pesticides, herbicides and chemicals used to spray our foods and keep GMOs thriving on a large scale. Big companies and companies who produce or had a history of producing chemicals and pesticides are often the ones who produce GMOs on a large scale and have a lot of political and economic influence on our food system and the way things are regulated, sold and distributed. Almost everything in industrial farming is uniform, decisions are made behind closed doors and often the companies themselves are the ones testing their food. This allows for a lot of dishonesty. Plus their incentive is almost always profits, not the overall well being of people. From my understanding, GMOs themselves are not bad. It's the processed food made from GMO crops and industrial farming methods that are used to produce them that really wreck our health. One of the last things I took away from this book is if we want to create a future where you can know what you're buying is nutritious, made with variety and not full of pesticides and who knows what other chemicals, we need to have sustainability. We should give more to family farmers and smaller farming communities that have had a history of living off the land and know how to properly grow food and maintain a variety of healthy crops that is easy to be distributed and bought locally and is transparent to their methods. We should focus on production over multiple generations and not just the next year. Especially as climate change worsens, doing these things will be considerably more important and we will have to be more environmentally conscious than we have before.
Overall, this book was a very informative read and uncovered a lot about our food and the problems encompassing how we make it.
May 13, 2017
"Food Fight" is an interesting book, written in the style of well-researched newspaper article, which discusses GMOs. GMOs are highly present in the American diet, but there are strong opinions on both sides about safety and whether they should be used. The author has done his research and interviewed people on both sides of the debate. The book begins with the not-so-simple question of safety and then goes back to follow the history that led to GMOs and current practices. Where this book seems to take a turn is where it begins to discuss the pesticides and weed-killers that are used alongside crops (not just GMOs) and wrapping this into the same debate. This is a different question and although it is difficult to discern side effects from GMOs vs. pesticides and such used on them, they are different questions.
The book seems to lean a little against GMOs in general, and this is evidenced by more words/space spent on the arguments against them. That said, both arguments are provided so the reader is able to decide for him or herself. The book is not simply about GMOs but rather the debate hovers around all the other environmental impacts and practices that have come alongside them due to the rise in large-scale farming, over-farming, etc. This then is a different question than simply GMOs. However, it's a complex system and the questions must be equally complex. For people who are interested in farming and how food is produced- the pros/cons of the current system, this book is a good resource- of more than just GMOs.
Please note that I received an ARC through a goodreads giveaway. All opinions are my own.
The book seems to lean a little against GMOs in general, and this is evidenced by more words/space spent on the arguments against them. That said, both arguments are provided so the reader is able to decide for him or herself. The book is not simply about GMOs but rather the debate hovers around all the other environmental impacts and practices that have come alongside them due to the rise in large-scale farming, over-farming, etc. This then is a different question than simply GMOs. However, it's a complex system and the questions must be equally complex. For people who are interested in farming and how food is produced- the pros/cons of the current system, this book is a good resource- of more than just GMOs.
Please note that I received an ARC through a goodreads giveaway. All opinions are my own.
April 19, 2019
The first couple of chapters gave me the impression that this book was heavily anti GMO bias. However, the author went on to present both sides of the view midway through the book. By the end of the book, I felt more knowledgeable about our food industries and have a more informed opinion of the matter.
The book did not change my opinion that the only way forward is to improve our food technologies and industries but the book did change my opinion on which direction that technology should move towards.
Also, The book broaden my view on the whole food debate and how there is so much more to consider that just a simple Yes or No answer.
The book did not change my opinion that the only way forward is to improve our food technologies and industries but the book did change my opinion on which direction that technology should move towards.
Also, The book broaden my view on the whole food debate and how there is so much more to consider that just a simple Yes or No answer.
April 24, 2018
Great introductory text to the question of GMOs and sustainable agriculture in today's society. Worth at least a consideration of a read-through for just about everyone. Very even-handed while approaching the topic as well, which should make it palatable regardless of the ideological side you stand on.
If you have any interest in learning more about where your food comes from (or why you don't know) this is a short read worth your time.
If you have any interest in learning more about where your food comes from (or why you don't know) this is a short read worth your time.
July 5, 2018
This is a highly informative book for anyone wanting to learn more about the pros and cons of GMO grown foods. The author also digs into information about pesticides on crops and how they can potentially harm surrounding communities/people. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and felt compelled to take action.
The author showed both sides of the GMO debate and clearly the issue isn’t black and white. I recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about how and where our food is grown.
The author showed both sides of the GMO debate and clearly the issue isn’t black and white. I recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about how and where our food is grown.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 16, 2018
Chapter 3 of Food Fight provides a user-friendly guide to genetic engineering. Jenkins combines scientific terms with familiar language to create descriptions of complex concepts that are easy to understand. The whole book is worth reading.
https://greengroundswell.com/gmos-and...
https://greengroundswell.com/gmos-and...
May 11, 2017
Very informative but also really boring. These days it seems like writers can't both write informational books while also having some charisma in their writing.
June 10, 2018
Think you know all about GMOs and Monsanto? Read this book and find out. You know nothing, Jon Snow.
November 23, 2018
A little preachy, but overall fascinating and definitely thought-provoking...
February 8, 2020
Lucid, complex, and compelling.
June 28, 2020
Interesting expose on the horrors of the genetically modified food market. Must read for all Americans concerned with their food intake.
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October 14, 2021This was a great book!
January 29, 2023
While some good arguments were made, I started this book expecting a more balanced approach on both sides of the discussion but I felt for the most part the opinions expressed were against GMOs.
June 15, 2024
Absolute must read book for all people who eat food. McKay Jenkins is an inspiration.
October 22, 2017
I would like to recommend this book to my friends!
March 28, 2017
I didn't realise this book was published this year. I found it to be a really efficient read: in that it was comprehensive, but still moved through things quickly and didn't dwell on any one facet for too long. It integrated science/facts with narratives and varying perspectives really well.
March 31, 2017
not balanced at all
April 18, 2017
Very informative and well balanced.
September 13, 2017
Everyone needs to read this.
March 5, 2018
Really well balanced book on our food system and the role GMOs play.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews