Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them

by Dan Saladino

Dan Saladino's Eating to Extinction is the prominent broadcaster’s pathbreaking tour of the world’s vanishing foods and his argument for why they matter now more than ever

Over the past several decades, globalization has homogenized what we eat, and done so ruthlessly. The numbers are Of the roughly six thousand different plants once consumed by human beings, only nine remain major staples today. Just three of these―rice, wheat, and corn―now provide fifty percent of all our calories. Dig deeper and the trends are more worrisome

The source of much of the world’s food―seeds―is mostly in the control of just four corporations. Ninety-five percent of milk consumed in the United States comes from a single breed of cow. Half of all the world’s cheese is made with bacteria or enzymes made by one company. And one in four beers drunk around the world is the product of one brewer.

If it strikes you that everything is starting to taste the same wherever you are in the world, you’re by no means alone. This when we lose diversity and foods become endangered, we not only risk the loss of traditional foodways, but also of flavors, smells, and textures that may never be experienced again. And the consolidation of our food has other steep costs, including a lack of resilience in the face of climate change, pests, and parasites. Our food monoculture is a threat to our health―and to the planet.

In Eating to Extinction, the distinguished BBC food journalist Dan Saladino travels the world to experience and document our most at-risk foods before it’s too late. He tells the fascinating stories of the people who continue to cultivate, forage, hunt, cook, and consume what the rest of us have forgotten or didn’t even know existed. Take honey―not the familiar product sold in plastic bottles, but the wild honey gathered by the Hadza people of East Africa, whose diet consists of eight hundred different plants and animals and who communicate with birds in order to locate bees’ nests. Or consider murnong―once the staple food of Aboriginal Australians, this small root vegetable with the sweet taste of coconut is undergoing a revival after nearly being driven to extinction. And in Sierra Leone, there are just a few surviving stenophylla trees, a plant species now considered crucial to the future of coffee.

From an Indigenous American chef refining precolonial recipes to farmers tending Geechee red peas on the Sea Islands of Georgia, the individuals profiled in Eating to Extinction are essential guides to treasured foods that have endured in the face of rampant sameness and standardization. They also provide a roadmap to a food system that is healthier, more robust, and, above all, richer in flavor and meaning.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Science, History, Nature, Environment, Audiobook

450 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overkill. I started this book with enthusiasm. I finished it with relief. I should imagine marathon runners might feel like this. There was too much information about everything, Each item had it's full history, often going back to prehistoric times, it's geography, uses, who grew it, how it stopped being grown, what they did instead, what it tasted like, why there is no commercial interest in it, why there should be and what we can do about it now. There was a lot of repetition. Instead of writing, 'as with corn...' for example, the decline of each food would be detailed in full.

That's just the facts, add into that the stories and the author's personal experiences doing field research and sometimes his personal political opinions written as if they were facts too. I'm sorry but I ended up skimming. I felt guilty doing it though, I felt all this was information I should know, but it was overkill.

2.5 stars rounded up. If the author and editor had taken out the most repetitive and dry passages that might be necessary in a text book - this is for an audience that likes popular science, it would probably have been a 4.5 star. Lots of people disagree with me and rated this book really highly. They have more fortitude than me!
__________

The book was exhausting reading. The book is about two things, how monoculture of an animal, think Holsteins for cows, corn, wheat, cotton and chickens, is a very bad thing because they have been bred for production and not for disease-resistance, so a single virus, fungus or bacteria could wipe them all out. Think elm trees.

All monoculture produce, animal or vegetable, has this disease problem. All except two. Termites and ants both of which farm fungi, ants also have the insect equivalent of dairy and meat farms and do not have this problem! As the biblical proverb says

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest

but we need to change 'sluggard' to researcher. So the first thing the book is about is the importance of diversity to protect food supplies.

The second is that we lose taste and culture. Champagne perry, made from pears, has almost died out because there are so few perry pear trees grown. It is an uncertain crop, not a guaranteed twice- year, can be gassed until needed and everyone wants to drink it anyway. It was always a hand-made drink and the hows, the whys, the get-togethers to appreciate the different vintages, perhaps even the equipment, has more or less disappeared. Now the only pears available to buy are Anjous, Bartless, Bosc, Comice, Concorde and Asian, all good commercial croppers. There are actually over 3,000 varieties of pears. What are we missing out on?

The issue of diversity has been well-addressed for many years and there are many seed banks throughout the world storing thousands of varieties of seed. But if no disease threatens they aren't going to be used. What the consumer wants (I'm talking US now) is pretty, uniform food that is easily available whenever they want it and cheap, cheap, cheap. So the food scientists design half a dozen varieties that will fulfill this (and illegal immigrants can pick them for very little money) and have sacrificed flavour no matter what the box and advertising say.

If you plant tomatoes when you pick one and eat it then and there, it has a real taste and warmth, not like the ones you buy, not even the 'vine-ripened' ones. If you rub a leaf it smells like you want a tomato to taste. To me, a just-picked tomato tastes of the sun.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dan Saladino's Eating to Extinction is an ambitious work. He tells the history of some of our staple foods, spins tales of his travels to find landrace plants (genetically diverse crops grown in a specific area whose seeds were kept and sown year after year and passed down through many generations) and less inbred domesticated animals and the people that farm them, and explains why it matters.

"For most of our evolution as a species, as hunter-gatherers and then as farmers, human diets were enormously varied. Our food was the product of a place and crops were adapted to a particular environment, shaped by the knowledge and the preferences of the people who lived there as well as the climate, soil, water and even altitude. This diversity was stored and passed on in the seeds farmers saved, in the flavours of the fruits and vegetables people grew, the breeds of animals they reared, the bread they baked, the cheeses they produced and the drinks they made."

"Consider these facts: the source of much of the world's food--seeds--is mostly in the control of just four corporations; half of all the world's cheeses are produced with bacteria or enzymes manufactured by a single company; one in four beers drunk around the world is the product of one brewer; from the USA to China, most global pork production is based around the genetics of a single breed of pig; and perhaps most famously, although there are more than 1,500 different varieties of banana, global trade is dominated by just one, the Cavendish, a cloned fruit grown in monocultures so vast their scale can only be comprehended from the view of an aeroplane or by satellite."

So what? you ask.

With these monocultures, we put our food security at risk. Genetic diversity in crops and livestock increases the survivability of various events such as warmer or colder temperatures, more or less water, new pests and diseases, etc. There's a reason why monocultures don't exist in nature.

By opting for industrialised and ultra-processed foods we have lost 1/3 of the diversity in our gut microbiome. These bacteria and yeasts are linked to our health and their lack contributes to many more prevalent modern diseases. We are missing these goodies from sauerkraut, kvass, traditionally made cheeses, and much more.

With the destruction of wild animal habitats, frequently to raise more monocultures, livestock and humans have more encounters with wild animals. In livestock zoonotic spillover includes Avian Flu and African Swine Fever, which have decimated flocks of chickens and the Chinese pork industry. Spillover into humans includes HIV, Ebola, and most recently SARS-CoV2.

I had been aware of these 3 points, though not the depth of the problem of monocultures. What caused me to pause was Saladino's statement “It's not just our diets that have been homogenized, but also our palates. " I hadn't thought about how this shrinking diversity means that we are globally sharing the same tastes. And with the loss of these ancient foods we lose out on so many flavors as well as aspects of our cultures.

"Our future food is going to depend on multiple systems of agriculture. Some will be highly industrialized and mechanised, others smaller in scale and richer in their variety of crops and animals. Diversity can help each of these systems become as successful and resilient as they can possibly be. . . . Saving diversity gives us options."

Saldino has written a fascinating, engaging, thought-provoking book. I have provided you with the bare bones of this work. If your interest is piqued, I hope you will dive in for more.

[marta the book slayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm just as a surprised as you are that a book about food didn't excite me as much as I assumed it would. I think this stems from two things (and really maybe they are the same thing):
1. the topics felt a bit repetitive despite focusing on different food
2.the style of writing was hard for me to pay attention to for long periods of time.

The book is structured into different types of food: wild (honey, bear root, etc), cereal, vegetables, meat, seafood, fruit, cheese, alcohol, stimulants, and sweets. That's a lot of information to cramp into a book!!! I enjoyed the way it was broken down and truth be told a lot of this food I have never even heard of (probably because it's going extinct).

My main issue was that a lot of the times the history of the food was very similar. It prevailed at some point in time, was used by the region's people, a "better" alternate was introduced that was easier to grow, people found that it was more susceptible to diseases/ required pesticides/ lacked nutrients, someone out there preserved a couple of seeds, and someone else has since been growing the food and trying to restore the historical way of eating. The first time you read this structure you say to yourself wow that is crazy that really just a couple of seeds can make all the difference or what am i even eating, how many foods have i lost that really have all the nutrients i need.

After a while of this same story, it feels too repetitive and you get bored. As you know history has a way of repeating itself, and although I found the categorization of different food originally a helpful way of breaking up the story maybe it would have been easier to digest (pun fully intended) if the story of foods that shared similar histories were grouped instead. That way I could focus more on what the food actually is and the value of it instead of following the same story outline.

While reading this I ended up kind of finding it a bore. It felt hard for me to pay attention and fully understand what I need to grasp from each chapter. For this reason I would suggest you take this in small chunks, maybe only focus on one story a day. Due to the looming deadline of providing feedback, I rushed through this a bit and didn't have such a pleasant reading experience.

Overall, I think this would be one I would like to revisit in print. I definitely think this is a topic not discussed often and as I focus more on women's health it is interesting to hear how creative we have to be with our diets in order to get all the nutrients we need - when in reality some of these ancient and rare foods would supplement our bodies. I would also be lying if at times I were not salivating at the descriptions of the food. I got a little sad by the fact that I might never be able to give those foods a try, unless they are saved and shared amongst everyone (which is my hope).

Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an unbiased and honest review

[The Sassy Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book was just so fascinating (and depressing) to me. The author takes us on a tour of a variety of endangered foods from around the world. The histories of each food. Stories of our ancestors, and of the people who are trying to keep these foods from going extinct. The book is divided into several chapters (meat, fruits, cheese, alcohol, etc), and the author has a very engaging voice throughout. If you are a foodie, you'll love this book. If you are a history buff, you'll love this book. Definitely my favorite non-fiction book I have read this year. 🙌🏻

**ARC Via NetGalley**

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

When we had an allotment many many years ago we would spend ages pouring over the seed catalogues trying to find the tastiest fruit and vegetable to buy. Often the ones that came top of the plate taste test were the heritage ones. These are often ignored by supermarkets as they don’t meet their very stringent and specific requirements.

Seed companies also ignored them as the cost of registering them was prohibitive. So to get these seeds we had to sign up to an organisation whose members could see that losing them was a disaster in the making.

This disaster is now almost on us. But there are people all around the world fighting back now. In Eating to Extinction, Dan Saladino crisscrosses the planet to talk to the farmers, cooks and individuals who have a vested interest in making sure that these rare food and drink are being kept alive. We learn about the original varieties of corn in South America, Lambic beers in Belgium and indigenous communities who have gone back to the wild rice that is resistant to the diseases affecting modern varieties. It is a fascinating journey.

I thought that this was an excellent book about the looming disaster that the global food industry has the potential to become. I did notice that there are people at the top of these big businesses that dominate the global food system who are starting to make a noise. But vested interests still hold sway – at the moment. I have seen some reviews that complained that he goes into too much detail about the various food and drinks that he has investigated. But for me, this is exactly what we need, someone who is prepared to dig in and find the details of that particular grain or drink.

Reading it I felt like I was hearing his voice on the programmes that he presents on the Food Programme on BBC Radio 4. I liked the short essays on each subject too. It is a book that could be returned to again and again. Mostly though it is a call to arms to ensure that governments start to put in place the necessary regulations to ensure that we have more diversity in the food chain. Otherwise, we are all doomed…

Very highly recommended

[Tim Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

4.5 for sure!

Truly a book written for those who grow, cook or enjoy food as well as history buffs! Exploring thru a wide variety of food-types, Saladino delivers to us the unvarnished truth of how human consumption is changing the biodiversity of the planet, and potentially setting up humanity for a fall.

The way he explains how monocultures have grown to such staggering amounts, hoe it has created a scarcity of diversity in the food we consume, and how that is a shakey solution at best is both well documented and entertaining! Think of it as a planet earth special... just about food. From wheat to coffee, fish to cheese and pigs and all in between, there is much to be said about those nutritional warriors fighting to keep diversity in our food!

Full of illuminating statistics and amazing firsthand accounts, this will go down as a touchstone for future food writing, and producing to be sure!

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

A reporter travels the world, looking for food that may be going the way of the dodo. Some of it reads like the last five minutes of a National Geographic program on PBS.

The rest of the book, where the explorer tells us the history and savors the flavors of these obscure foods makes the book worth reading. Most interesting to me was the chapter on perry, sort of cider made out of pears. I'd really love to try some.

An informative book on a subject that needs more exposure. Highly recommended.

[Emily M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I put off reading this book because I HATE the title! It sounds like it is implying that rare foods are being eaten too much, when in most cases the problem is that they are being grown and eaten too little. However, it turns out that Mr. Saladino knows that perfectly well! In this volume we get a fascinating world tour of endangered wild plants, grains, vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, cheeses, drinks, and sweets. We learn about the various forces that have put these foods, and the cultures they are associated with, in jeopardy, and meet some of the passionate people working to save them.

Some of my favorite chapters include:
- Murnong (Southern Australia). I knew that a lot of Aboriginal art depicted the gathering of “yams” – actually a native daisy-like plant with a thick tuber. However, I didn’t know that murnong nearly went extinct, in large part because the sheep imported by British settlers also liked to eat it! As with the near-extinction of the bison in the USA (chronicled in another chapter), the decline of this key food played a crucial role in colonization and the fracturing of indigenous culture. Fortunately both are now starting to multiply again, with human assistance!
- Red mouth glutinous rice (Sichuan China) I learned in this chapter that “In the 1920s a group of intellectuals and small-holders set up the original Rural Reconstruction Movement to…improve crops, establish co-operatives and sell more produce in China’s towns and cities. After the revolution and during Mao’s rule, it disappeared, but in the 1990s was resurrected.” This book calls out global capitalist food systems for their role in homogenizing crop and livestock production, but you will also see quite a few examples like this where anyone with leftist leanings is likely to go “That’s the exactly the kind of thing a socialist revolution should have been promoting! Why the heck would you shut that down?!” I don’t think I’ve really seen any book tackle it but, to me, one of the failings of the attempts to implement communism in the 20th century – besides, obviously, the authoritarian direction these governments took! – was adopting the capitalist west’s definitions of progress and wealth-building and then trying to force that process to go even faster. The market can favor crops that are uniform and easy to transport, or a government can tell farmers to plant a few “modern” varieties; the result in terms of loss of diversity is the same! In a second, more fun note, I learned here that many heritage rice varieties are red…and then a week later went to a conference, ate at Thai District (Long Beach), and was served red heritage jasmine rice! I was tickled as pink as the grains.
- Olotón maize (Oaxaca, Mexico) This one was a personal delight, because I was on a grant review panel a few years back where one of the proposals I read focused on this crop: a type of maize that grows aerial roots dripping with mucilage, in which live nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Most commercial hybrid maize uses huge amounts of nitrogen fertilizer, which can then run off and pollute waterways, so the idea of studying this crop that can make its own fertilizer and trying to breed that into more varieties was very exciting – so I argued hard for that proposal, and was happy to see it rise to the “probably going to be funded” pile! This chapter also includes a good bit about the effects of the NAFTA trade agreement on Mexican farmers, and the grassroots movement to defend maize agriculture that uses the slogan “sin maíz, no hay país” (without corn, there is no country).
- O-Higu soybean (Okinawa, Japan) Could maybe have used a bit more about this variety in particular, but this chapter was a great illustration of global trade butterfly effects! An el Niño year and overfishing tanked the 1972 anchovy harvest. Anchovies were used in livestock feed, so producers switched to soy. The US restricted soy exports to avoid shortages, so Japan turned to Brazil, and Brazil started clearing more forest (rainforest and cerrado) to grow soy!
- Skerpikjøt (Faroe Islands) Besides allowing me to learn about the fermented, salty-sea-air-cured sheep leg of the title, this chapter makes a great point about not lumping all meat-eating together (especially when an environment is not well suited to non-animal-based agriculture) or assuming that the violence you see is worse than that which is hidden:“Across the world images seen of the grindadráp and the bloody ocean had led to Faroe Islanders being accused of brutality. ‘But the whales are free until the point of death, and our sheep are allowed to grow old…Why is our meat any crueler than the slaughter of millions of animals inside industrial abattoirs no one gets to see?’”
- Shio-Katsuo (Nishiizu, Southern Japan) The titular food is a type of cured skipjack tuna traditionally used in small amounts to elevate the vegetable-based diet of pre-westernization Japan. I’d known the diet of Japan had shifted, but this chapter really drove home the extent to which that was due to the perception of meat-eating as being something that modern, successful countries did, and how that in turn had impacts on not just farm animal consumption but also bluefin tuna – previously dismissed as a trash fish, but prized after WWII because it resembles beef.
- Kayinja banana (Uganda) I appreciate this chapter for explaining the huge variety of bananas that exist beyond the basic yellow ones that show up in US grocery stores, as well as the impact that promotion of banana monocultures had on cultures and the spread of the fusarium wilt that is currently endangering both the dominant variety, the Cavendish, and banana farmers and eaters around the world. One thing I wish it had explained, however, is how do you breed new banana varieties?! Because it isn’t just Cavendish that is a clone; all seedless bananas need to be cultivated by cuttings. You’ll get occasional mutations, of course, but that’s a slow way to get variation. I went down a bit of a google rabbit hole and eventually came up with this Smithonian article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc... The answer seems to be: Yes, you need to start with pollen from a variety that has characteristics you want, and use it to fertilize a variety that makes seeds, and then grow the seeds and see what you get. No wonder the idea of genetic engineering seems like a desirable shortcut! But, either way, you still need that ancestral banana diversity as a base.
- Salers (Auvergne, Central France) The description of how cows are taken up the Massif Central to graze on alpine plants, and how the cowherds place their milk into wooden vats that “farm” the correct microbes A) made me really want to taste this cheese and B) made me miss the Swiss cows I used to pass on my way to my postdoctoral field sites in the Alps! (Somewhat tamer-looking than the ancient beasts described here, but also not the ubiquitous black and white Holsteins)
- Qvevri wine (Georgia) Also want to taste this wild, amber-colored wine! "According to the ethos of this world, you raise wine as you would a child. Even the term 'winemaker' can be frowned upon...The producer is nothing more than a guide for the grapes which are predestined to encounter wild yeasts and be fermented into wine...The Georgians describe the wine in the buried qvevri as being wrapped in the mother's embrace, with the earth as mother."
- Halawet el Jibn (Homs, Syria) This sweet traditionally uses a local variety of grain to make. Earlier in the book, we learned about the heroic efforts of the people working at the Leningrad seedbank during the siege of that city by the Nazis, with one rice curator starving to death at his desk, surrounded by specimens he refused to touch. (Respect!) Well, the scientists at the main seedbank in Syria also made heroic efforts to protect their institute during the civil war in 2011, before ultimately being forced to flee to Lebanon. I’d heard about them carrying on their work by getting backups from the Svalbard seed bank. But I hadn't been aware that the facility they lost had the collections salvaged from Iraq's seedbank in Abu Ghraib...because Syria was supposed to be the SAFE location!
- Qizha Cake (Nablus, West Bank) This chapter features the efforts of Vivien Sansour to collect and sometimes resurrect Palestinian heirloom seeds, and notes that water (both for drinking and agriculture) is a major part of the conflict in the area, with Israel and illegal Israeli settlements controlling most of the West Bank’s water. (And, of course, Palestinians in Gaza are suffering far worse as we speak!) "One day, she says, she will bring back other lost varieties of sesame to the West Bank. 'To tell me that our seeds are not worth saving and planting is like telling me that we as people have no worth and no future'...This is why a watermelon...or a tiny sesame seed is such a powerful thing. Each one can be a small taste of freedom."
For more info on the seed project, check out: https://viviensansour.com/Contact-FAQ

Finally, I appreciate that, in the conclusion, Saladino points out that while grassroots efforts like the ones highlighted in most chapters are important, government also has a role to play for good and ill. He notes that a large fraction of agricultural subsidies still go to support monocultures of soy, wheat, and maize rather than to small farms or “specialty crops” (everything else)…but that policies can also have the opposite effect. For instance, Brazil has introduced a rule that 30% of food in school meals must come from local farms, and in Copenhagen a similar policy, in which contracts for school supplies were based on the number of apple varieties businesses included, ended up reviving local orchards. There’s also a suggestion that, as we work toward better policies, we can also regain a sense of place through learning how to forage local foods. Which sounds hard, but if you look around you may find that you have a spot like my local bikepath creek that produces a HUGE number of wild blackberries and rosehips!

A few other resources worth checking out if you are interested in this topic:
- The White Earth band of Ojibwe, as mentioned in this book, sell traditionally parched wild rice and other products such as jam as a way of raising money for land recovery. I can testify that it is delicious and cooks in half the time of the farmed stuff! https://nativeharvest.com/
- Native seeds/SEARCH is an organization I encountered when I briefly lived in Arizona back in the ‘90s. They now have a very nice website where you can buy heirloom seeds (mostly those native to the arid southwest) or products made with them or with native wild plants like mesquite or cholla. https://www.nativeseeds.org/
There's a certain amount of privilege involved in being able to afford to BUY special heirloom foods, of course! So, for the DIY-ers:
- Seed Savers Exchange both sells heirloom seeds and runs educational workshops on how to save seeds. https://seedsavers.org/
- Two articles on "guerilla gardening" (using abandoned or underused urban land to grow plants): https://theconversation.com/guerilla-... https://www.treehugger.com/what-is-gu...

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good one to read if you are involved with food justice and the slow food movement.

It is also the story of how tastes can change due to human fickleness.

I would like to try some of these foods, but will I have the chance?

[Bagus · Rating 4 out of 5]

These days, the expression “You are what you eat” has acquired more popularity. It entered the English lexicon through the publication of Victor Lindahr’s 1942 book You Are What You Eat: How to Win and Keep Health with Diet. But long before that in 1826, the French lawyer and politician Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote in his The Physiology of Taste , "Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are]. Brillat-Savarin who is now widely regarded as an early gastronome did not mean his phrase literally but rather gave a hint that the food one eats often has effects on one’s state of mind and health. On a rather similar note, Dan Saladino also brings us into some reflections about the foods and drinks we consume in this modern life.

As a journalist and presenter on BBC Radio 4’s “The Food Programme”, Dan Saladino has many opportunities to travel and observe many staples and drinks that people create traditionally around the world. Partly travelogues and partly essay collection, this book present a harsh reality of our food industry in the 21st century that lost its diversity in just a few centuries that passed after the Industrial Revolution. The food diversity that has been lost was caused partly by monocultures, due to the demand of modern consumption that commoditises foods, leaving little room for varieties with less endurance for global consumption. In one way, our global supply chain system allows us to taste foods and beverages originated from other parts of the world, but at the same time, it also homogenises our interaction with foods with increasing standards.

As someone trained in linguistics, I was taught by my lecturer that language extinction is a normal phenomenon, especially when there’s cultural assimilation that leads to the gradual abandonment of native languages in favour of a more common lingua franca. Think of how English is widely spoken in the twenty-first century and its position as an international language of communication. Reading Dan Saladino’s arguments that stand against food homogenisation, one question appeared in my mind: How is food homogenisation compared to the cultural assimilation that caused language extinction? In some regards, food homogenisation could also be viewed partly as cultural assimilation since foods signify one’s culture and heritage, with a history that could be traced to time immemorial. And this could also be seen as a popular view that favours one culture over another. But beyond its cultural attribution, foods also influence our health and states of mind as Brillat-Savarin told us two centuries ago.

Dan Saladino begins his introduction to the world rarest foods by taking us into some foods consumed by the world’s remaining hunter-gatherers. This is by no means an invitation to revoke our modern food production system that has been influenced a lot by the Green Revolution introduced by agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug in the 1950s. Rather, Dan Saladino is keen to show the many pearls of wisdom that exist in hunter-gatherer societies with regards to how they interact with nature and how they cultivate their foods. One striking example is the interaction between the Hadza people who live near Lake Eyasi in Tanzania with a wild bird species called the greater honeyguide (strangely, its binomial name is Indicator indicator). Hadza men whistle, strike trees and sometimes shout in a distinctive chatter that attracts the honeyguide to lead the Hadza hunters to locate a bee nest. The Hadza men will return with the liquid honey to their home, while the honeyguide consumes beeswax that was left at the tree. There are many such stories collected from all parts of the world by Dan Saladino in a range of topics that touch upon subjects of cereal, vegetable, meat, fish, fruit, cheese, alcohol, stimulants, and sweets.

It’s a book that surely needs to be read by gastronome, climate activists, people from all walks of life, to get the gist of how our interaction with foods has changed a lot in a really short period of human existence. There is a wisdom in the Slow Food movement, founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986 which strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and encourage farming and livestock characteristics that fit with the local ecosystem. Many landrace varieties have disappeared and been replaced by monocultures. The landrace breed that is often evolved over a long period of time to adapt to its natural surrounding has slowly lost its place with the introduction of commodities to fulfil the global market needs. Along with Mark Bittman’s Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal , this is the kind of book that might convince people to source their foods locally and to start looking for more diverse and organic options to sustain our food security in the foreseeable future.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing the electronic advance reading copy.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating look at some of the local foods that we are losing because of corporate and governmental encouragement (nearly always financial) to plant monocultural crops. Those animals or plants that require special circumstances or a little more care or haven't had their immunity to fungus or pests breed out of them in exchange for greater production - here is just a fraction of biodiversity that, in many cases, are hanging onto existence only due to one or less than a handful of protective producers. Or even know how to prepare what was once part of a traditional ciosine.

One thing to remember while reading about all of these plants and animals is Quote - The name given to a genetically diverse crop grown in a specific area whose seeds were kept and sown year after year and passed down through many generations, is a 'landrace'

Ten categories which have 2 to 4 food described in each. Each item within the group has a bit about modern interaction with some of those who are attempting to save what was - in many cases - part of their culture and history. History of humanity's interaction and modification.
*Wild Foods like hadza honey, bear root, murnong and memang narang which foragers and the hunter-gatherer societies once thrived on and could continue to thrive if these foods weren't on the edge of extinction.
*Grains like kavilca wheat, bere barley, red mouth glutinous rice, oloton maize where ancient diversity may hold the secrets to save monocultural grains from the effects of climate change.
*Vegetables like the Geechee red pea, alb lentil (extinct until seeds were found filed under a misspelled name in the Russian Vavilov Institute), oca, and o-higu soy beans which were found among the Ryuku University collections.
*Meat like fermented skerpkjøt, black ogye chicken (all parts are black including the bones), middle white pig and bison.
*From the Sea wild atlantic salmon, imraguen butarikh, sheio-katsuo and flat oysters.
*Fruit sievers apple, kayinja banana, vanilla orange even as cider makers are searching for lost varieties in abandoned orchards from decades ago.
* Cheese Salers, Stichelton and Mishavinï in which homogenization of milk as well as pasteurization kills local good and bad bacteria eliminating distinctive flavors. Nearly all bacteria used in cheese now comes from a catalog although one corporation is constantly on the lookout for new additions.
*Alcohol Qvevri wine, lambic beer and perry or pear 'cider'
*Stimulants Ancient Forest Pu-Erh Tea which is sold for thousands of dollars whenever a historically documented pressed disc of tea is available and then there is the wild forest coffee.
*Sweets Halawet el Jibn from Syria, Qisha Cake from Palestine and Criollo Cacao from Venezuela which are basically either conflict zones or countries/areas economically devastated but can provide a source of hope.

Even with the Millenium Seed Bank - which collects mostly wild plant diversity - the Svalbard Seed Vault which focuses on food crops, and the Vavilov Institute of Russia which is the results of Nikolai Vavilov's collecting of thousands of seeds during the 1930's can't keep ahead of the rate of extinction. Tastes and flavors are disappearing or already lost and many will never even know that they have missed out on a unique and delectable experience.

It is a true case of irony is that Vavilov - who collected those thousands of seeds which were protected by loyal scientists during the German siege of St. Petersburg - was arrested by Stalin in 1940 and starved to death in prison in 1943 despite his wife sending food packages that he never received.

2022-153

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Eating to Extinction" is an interesting book. It could be as short as an essay or as long as you'd care to make it. It's the same story, over and over again. A slight variation depending on the food item at any given time, but the same story.

In this particular rendition, Saladino takes the reader on a world tour of a number of endangered foods. And he doesn't just focus on the foods themselves either, he couples them with traditional practices and preparation techniques - since these too are near extinct (and sometimes actually extinct). He provides a short history of each, lands in the present and illustrates why it'd be a bad thing if it went extinct (usually both health and/or nutrition related as well as environmentally speaking).

It is, essentially, the same story every time, and it can be summarized - roughly - as:
We started out with incredible diversity, focused increasingly on one or two traits and/or foods in cultivating them, eventually changed it/them into unrecognition, and then began mass-producing it/them. Thus fucking up any semblance of natural order or sustainability, and we're now heading right up the toxic Shit Creek in a leaking canoe.

Considering this, maybe it's weird to say that I really enjoyed the book, but I did. Its organization and categorization is intuitive. It's well written and informative without getting too lost in science and/or specifics (because of this, I think "Eating to Extinction" works best as an introduction or invitation to further readings). Its subject matter is literally essential for life and future - ours and nature's. But, perhaps more importantly (for my enjoyment of the book, mind, not for life itself), I think that the author's engagement and feeling comes through really well. His love of both food and people is contagious, almost enthralling.

The specific foods Saladino features aren't really all that important. He could have picked any given ones from a dizzying array of threatened foods. The individual foods primarily serve as case studies, as a vehicle to ground the overarching argument. But they do provide some interesting specific information - a lot of this wasn't new to me (nor will it be to you if you've dipped your toes in the subject prior), but I came close to a syntax error when confronted with the fact that ten or so Atlantic Salmon farm pens house more salmon than the wild population of the entire Atlantic ocean (and we've fucked up the wild ones too).

The biggest issue I had with the book was that the author came across as a little too nostalgic and fanboy-y with regard to ancestral tradition and living off the land. There's a romanticism there that I think overlooks a lot of the issues inherent to near-extinct or extinct lifestyles - not to mention with the potential issues of applying them in the modern world. This is nitpicking on my part, mind. The author also mentions that he's neither expecting, nor even hoping for, a regression to pre-industrial practices at scale. What he hopes for is a system that is guided and inspired by these old techniques and foods, one that incorporates old wisdom and practices; A connectedness with a healthier and more sustainable food system.

Additionally, perhaps the book is a tad too long, it does get pretty repetitive. But then again, isn't that kind of the point too? The causal chain, after all, is the same everywhere. We are the problem. But we can also be the solution - or at least a solution - as long as we start patching this leaking canoe of ours. Yesterday. It is most definitely in our best interest to do so, and the very foods that we're pushing toward extinction could be our salvation.

Recommended.

[Audrey Approved · Rating 3 out of 5]

Monocultures are bad! Food diversity is good! Capitalism and colonialism have greatly impacted the foods we eat. Now repeat this over and over and you get the 34 chapters of Eating to Extinction.

Definitely some important concepts here - but I just felt like Saladino kept repeating himself. I would have preferred fewer chapters but deeper dives and maybe even a little more personal storytelling in the content (I do think the tone here leaned a lil academic sometimes). All that being said, I learned some cool food facts!

[Sharen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes you on a round the world look at foods that are no longer available and explains to us clearly why that matters. Saladino takes very hard facts and puts them into a story that helps us understand the perils of our own making. This heavily historic and scientific topic could have easily gotten bogged down but Saladino writes the details in a way that weaves all the hard data into an easy to follow storyline. He has also organized the chapters into logical groupings of foods and keeps one major food item the highlight of one chapter.

Saladino takes us back into history to explain why a particular food item was important and then connects that to why it matters to us now. Of course with all things humans have wrecked in this world, colonization, big corporations and climate change are clearly putting our food sources into peril as well. I was not aware of the homogenization of most of our world-wide (!) food production and how a lack of diversity puts the food supply into great danger with each new fungus or blight or disease.

Saladino narrates the book himself and does a good job. Not all authors make for good narrators but his voice and modulations were easy to listen too.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an early version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Miles Row · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this as a history book. There is a lot of information in it and is also informative about what is happening now but as I was aware of some of the current issues, it was the history elements that made this a 5 star book for me.

[Andy Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Shortlist for the Wainwright Conservation Prize this year is particularly strong. This is the fourth book out of the seven that I have read, and the third I’ve given five stars to, the others being Wild Fell: Fighting For Nature On A Lake District Hill Farm and The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth.

Such books on conservation are packed with scientific information and statistics,

The human diet has undergone more change in the last 150 years (roughly six generations) than in the previous one million years (around 40,000 generations)

Saladino, a former BBC food journalist, argues. World food production exploded after World War II when scientists produced grains, plants, and livestock. Though these developments drastically reduced famine, the mechanics involved required vast amounts of chemicals, fertilisers, and water. They relied on high-yield species and eliminated those that didn’t measure up, diminishing their diversity.

Too much fact thrown at the reader can be hard to handle. Most readers are not new to the subject, but neither are they experts; it’s a fine line to tread. Most of all though, the book must be readable, it needs some other elements; anecdotes, human stories, even humour. And it is this Saladino excels in.

He writes the book in short chapters, perhaps 5 to 8 pages long. Take ‘Criollo Cacao’ as an example, which is actually the last food in the book, under the sector heading of ‘Sweet’.

Saladino travels to Cumanacoa, Venezuela, where the plant is from, as he does with most of the foods described. Once there, he meets people relevant to its conservation and cultivation, then describes the relevant parts of the country, it’s past and it’s present. The short chapters finish with a discussion of the food more generally, in this case chocolate; it’s history from ancient times (in cacao’s case from the Mayans and Aztecs), it’s production, and varieties brought up to date. The style works very well. The book could easily be dipped into, or referred back to - though I read it chronologically.

It’s comprehensive also, from wild foraged foods, to chicken, pork and beef, to fruit, to cheeses from the Accursed Mountains of Albania, to Georgian wines and Belgian beers.

Since the middle of the twentieth century the body mass of the average chicken has increased five fold.
While a dairy cow in 1900 might have been expected to deliver between 1500 and 3000 litres of milk per year, by the end of the century the expectation was more like 8000 litres.
More than 95 per cent of America’s dairy herd is based around one breed of ‘super cow’, the Holstein.
A single bull in Wisconsin can now father half a million offspring in fifty different countries.

[Doc Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another one of my top rated reads of 2021.

The book charts the decline in diversity of our food, and the fact that so many foods have become endangered. Today the source of much of the world’s food and seeds are in the control of just four corporations.

Food diversity under the ‘Green Revolution’ has been sacrificed in favour of designed mono-crops that grow quickly and produce more. An attempt to oversimplify nature.

However, the impact of climate change, especially warmer, wetter weather is making these modern mono genetic crops more susceptible diseases that are spreading round the world.

Time to be worried by the level of food uniformity and the fact that we have abandoned thousands of highly adapted and resilient varieties.

Thankfully, the book is fully of the stories from pioneering individuals and communities around the world fighting for food diversity and preserving their food traditions.

As the world focuses on the race to net zero at COP26 we must not forget the complex relationships between biodiversity, climate change and inequality.

[Anshuman Swain · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up to 5.

The book serves as a warning about the over industrialization and over homogenisation of the foods and how that has threatened not only the local variants of different foods but also the homogenised foods themselves and the food security of the world. The author does a fantastic job of collecting examples of foods of different kinds and telling their stories through a unique lens of local traditions and resilience of a few who are conserving them against all odds. There are also foods that are threatened because of global change and human conflicts - and how a few individuals are making all the difference in saving them.

[Milo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to preface by saying holy shit I honestly thought I wouldn’t have a heap to say about this book when I started, but then I started working on this review as I was reading it and at about a quarter through the book I found I couldn’t fucking shut up and it turned into a genuine fucking essay lol. This honestly could’ve been so much longer bc so many chapters as I got further and further in just totally wowed me. Clearly I’m missing being at uni. Ten million points to anyone who reads it all the way through.

5 stars. ‘Eating to Extinction’ is an ambitious and incredibly interesting piece of work, that explores the very timely issue of critically endangered, rare, and vanishing foods, frm certain grains to meats and fish, to vegetables and fruits, etc etc. Saladino’s exploration of the dwindling variety of foods that were once vital to human diets and health and biodiversity more generally is both enlightening and thought-provoking, and he makes a powerful case fr the urgency of preserving these foods in our modern world.

The book is a stark demonstration of how only a handful of the hugely numerous of foods once consumed by humans have survived today. Saladino’s argument fr the significance of preserving these foods in the face of extinction is compelling, and his passion fr the subject shines through. As he explains, one significant argument fr preserving rare and vanishing foods is their potential contribution to biodiversity and ecological balance, as, fr instance, many of these foods possess unique genetic traits that could be crucial fr adapting to changing environmental conditions as a result of climate change and global warming, or even on a slightly smaller scale fr developing disease-resistant crops. By safeguarding these foods, we can maintain a valuable resource fr future agricultural innovation and environmental sustainability.

One thing Saladino kept turning to that I hadn’t really heard about before was the “Green Revolution,” a period of significant advancements in agricultural technology and practices that took place in the mid-20th century. It involved the development and introduction of high-yielding crop varieties, along w improved irrigation and farming techniques. These changes aimed to increase agricultural productivity and help address food shortages, particularly in developing countries. However, the Green Revolution had a major impact on global food production, and while it supposedly played a crucial role in reducing hunger and improving food security, it also had a number of incredibly negative impacts on biodiversity. As Saladino explains, the focus on a few high-yielding crop varieties led to the widespread adoption of monocultures, where large swathes of land (such as in the Amazon) were planted w the same type of crop, fr example a single variety of corn or wheat. This shift away frm diverse local crops reduced the genetic diversity of plants in those regions, and similarly, the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and irrigation practices had unintended consequences on the environment, as excessive use of these inputs often led to soil degradation, water pollution, and harm to non-target organisms, including beneficial insects and soil microorganisms. Traditional crop varieties and farming practices also were often abandoned in favour of the new high-yielding varieties, leading to the loss of unique local plant varieties and the age-old knowledge associated w them, and this further contributed to a decrease in biodiversity. As Saladino says in his chapter on the tuber oca, “Across the Andes, Emshwiller has seen other farmers abandon rotation systems for monocultures in which they attempt to grow the same crop on the same land year after year. This usually results in them using more pesticides and, as the soil becomes exhausted, they have to bring in fertilisers. In this way, they had lost not only ancient varieties of oca, but also the complex system that had given them self-sufficiency.”

Another engaging aspect was on the overall importance of knowing the origins of the food we eat. Fr one, it helps us understand the quality, safety, and sustainability of the food, as by knowing where it comes frm, we can make informed choices about its production methods and environmental impact. Likewise, it also allows us to trace the cultural, historical, and evolutionary aspects of our diets. It provides insights into the ways early societies cultivated, prepared, and consumed food, influencing our present-day food practices.

Take the origins of the chicken, frm its ancestor believed to be the red jungle fowl to the monstrosity that is the modern-day factory farmed chicken. This evolution of the chicken is a significant and complex shift. As Saladino explores, understanding this transformation is crucial bc it allows us to comprehend the factors that led to the development of factory farming practices and their subsequent impact on animal welfare and the environment. By knowing the historical context, we can better assess the ethical and sustainability issues associated w modern poultry production, leading to informed discourse and potential changes in farming practices and consumer behaviour. The accelerated pace of the poultry industry’s development has not only impacted the lifespan of birds but also various aspects of its operations, as the intensification of operations within large poultry systems comes w potential pitfalls.

Consider facilities housing thousands of genetically similar birds, where any mishap can have dire consequences. Despite the supposed introduction of advanced biosecurity measures and close veterinary oversight in many factory farms in developed economies, done to alleviate problems that crop up in these very large and intensive systems, certain industrial approaches to poultry production (like running at speeds of 175 birds slaughtered per minute) is spreading to regions w fewer resources and expertise, raising concerns among animal disease experts who suggest that such expansion could facilitate the emergence of zoonotic diseases, among other harms. The juxtaposition of efficiency-driven production and the vulnerability of such systems highlights the complex trade-offs within the poultry industry’s evolution. As the industry extends its reach to areas w limited safeguards, it underscores the need fr a balanced approach that considers not just economic benefits at the cost of everything, but also potential public health risks and issues of excessive animal cruelty.

In a similar vein, the current landscape we are in of an ever-changing climate requires us to be forward-thinking, and not driven by pure greed. We must not overlook the wisdom of safeguarding the biological tapestry that nature has woven over millions of years, and the homogenisation of the chicken may offer short-term benefits, but it’s far more imperative to consider the long-term implications. Striking a balance between innovation and preservation is a challenge that demands our immediate attention, and as stewards of this planet, we should be prudent enough to recognise that in the complexity of life, diversity holds one of the keys to our own survival.

But moving on, another food that Saladino discussed that I was particularly interested in was on the murnong, a yellow flower w a radish-like root frm southern Australia (I’m frm eastern Australia), and a staple food fr some Aboriginal peoples fr generations upon generations. However, as he explains, the knowledge of this plant’s cultivation and use, as well as the plant itself, was nearly lost due to the impacts of colonisation. Reviving this knowledge, he says, can effectively reconnect Indigenous communities w their cultural heritage and traditions. Likewise, through the Indigenous stewardship of their ancestral lands, it enables the application of traditional ecological knowledge, refined over generations, encouraging sustainable land management practices such as controlled burns and rotational farming, that benefit both the environment and the communities inhabiting them. So, by respecting Indigenous rights and practices, we can acknowledge their deep-rooted connections to the land and contribute to the restoration of balance disrupted by colonial history. As he briefly touches on, preserving Indigenous foods and traditional knowledge and practices is a crucial step towards reconciliation, and one that we all must advocate and fight fr.

However, one of the book’s minor drawbacks lies in its occasional repetitiveness. Saladino often links the various foods he’s exploring in ways that felt at times unnecessary, occasionally veering into monotony. This repetitiveness slightly diminished the otherwise interesting narrative and made certain parts of the book less engaging.

But regardless, the overall impact of Saladino’s research and passionate argument is undeniable. As Saladino says in the epilogue, we must work on reestablishing our deep connection w nature and our commitment to preserving the vanishing wild and diverse foods once so heavily a part of not just our diets but our lives. Embracing these foods wouldn’t just be a personal choice, but a transformative practice that many can and should adopt, even on small scales. According to Saladino, the notion of eating a simple dandelion from one’s lawn can become a symbol of rebellion against the norm, urging us to rediscover the flavours and benefits of wild ingredients. This approach encourages a reconnection w nature and a reimagining of our relationship with food, emphasising the importance of sustainability, diversity, and a harmonious coexistence w the natural world. This book is an incredibly important read fr anyone concerned about the future of not just our food diversity, but of our planet, and the urgent need fr action to repair the harms we have inflicted upon this earth.

[Killian De Geest · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessant maar te repetitief

[Sydney Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

This audiobook for EATING TO EXTINCTION is a natural next level book for readers/listeners of BRAIDING SWEETGRASS and THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES, as well as LAB GIRL and THE STORY OF MORE. While it is hard to heard about losing beloved diverse food sources and the natural gathering in ways that will soon be lost to us, and how it will have large eco effects, the good news is that there are stories of humans efforts to save diversity, there is some hope if we will pay attention and make better efforts.

Still, this is the type of audiobook that I like to listen to one chapter at a time. The book is dense and gives much to chew on, from many different food sources, fruits, grains, vegetables, meats, and even analyzing modern causes of the pandemic spread and other effects of world events. In fact, each chapter is fascinating in its own way, from efforts that scientists took to save important varieties of seedlings from being destroyed in a war, to hunter/gatherer techniques, to marine sanctuaries.

A note about the audio. My copy has a tiny sound to it, but I enjoyed the narrator's reading, once I got used to that sound. I am uncertain if it was the app I was using or the copy, but feel I must mention that part. Also, my copy did not have chapter names, which is needed, in case the listener gets lost (or falls asleep) and needs to back up, or is interested in jumping around. Since this was an advance copy in an advance listener app, this issue may be taken care of with the publication of the audio book. Otherwise, I found the product excellent, in this deeply researched and well-told non fiction offering.

[Oliwier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of very interesting stories on various foods from around the world, and highlights the importance of preserveving that diversity.
A must read for foodies who want to learn about rare vegetables, and for people with an interest in science who want to read about beer-making.

Thank you netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a review

[Ruslan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really intriguing book, which will be interesting not only for the loving food, but for anyone who is interested in biodiversity. The book really gives a broad look, explains the significance of different cultures, foods, gives historical remarks, and explains how the industry affects the environment. I recommend!

[Nora Wells · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I kept wondering why because I liked the history and analogies the author included but I kept feeling like something was missing. About 3/4 of the way through the book I realized that it was missing women. Like a lot.

I went back through the whole book and made note of (mostly) every time a person was mentioned by name and made special note of the people the author talked to for his stories. Below is the breakdown.

The author references many people throughout the book as those with significant historical or scientific relevance to the particular food or food history/science in general. He names about 125 men throughout the book (I didn’t include men that were named but not really relevant to the food like Biden, Mao, and Shakespeare). The author names 14 women throughout the book (he doesn’t offhand name women that I could exclude from the count).

Of the 12 quotes that begin each separate part of the book, 3 are quotes attributed to women.

The author meets and speaks with several people to develop these stories. These subjects are people who work directly with the food (grow, prepare, etc) or study it. Sometimes it was difficult to determine whether this is someone the author spoke with directly, but I counted if it seemed like the subject was speaking directly to the author. The author speaks with 32 men and 10 women. Two of those women are named and speak to the author but are the subjects wife and not actually the person the author intended to speak to about the food. One of the women seems to have passed away before speaking to the author but I counted her anyway because she featured so heavily in the stories about the peas. So the real number of women here is probably closer to 7.

Something that really frustrated me once I realized this is that the author hinted that women were really important to the overall story of preserving rare foods. The last chapter of the book speaks to this heavily with Di Giacobbe teaching women to preserve cacao and chocolate making techniques. I’m sure she isn’t the only example of women being the forefront of preserving rare and traditional foods but their stories are not featured in this book. And sometimes when they are, they aren’t even named. For example, the Oca chapter has an extensive part in which the author accompanied a group of Quechua women and spoke with them as they worked the fields and prepared the oca. It’s clear that these women are integral to preserving the food and techniques. None of the women are named.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the writing. I thought the stories were engaging and the writing made me want to look into rare foods more. I learned a lot and I’m interested in learning more about how I can help preserve biodiversity in food. The author spoke often about how colonialism, racism, classism, and capitalism have driven various foods to the brink of extinction. However, I think the author left a huge gap in the story. Throughout histories and cultures women have been a central part in food from growing and gathering food to preparing it. I’m almost certain that gender has played a role in why some foods, perhaps even the foods described in this book, are disappearing from our world. The further reading section doesn’t appear to recommend further reading that explores gender and food either. It’s just disappointing that gender (or women’s role in food really) was not even briefly discussed in the 370ish pages.

[Ioana Lily Balas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a bit split as to my reading experience - there were definitely pros and cons. Let's start with the pros:

This is a comprehensive guide of the world's foods that are on the verge of extinction or have recently been saved. The book is structured in food groups, such as sweets, meat, fish etc. It is fairly easy to read, it reads more like a travel essay combined with pieces of history than a textbook, so while it is chunky, it is a breeze to go through and each chapter reads like a story. To give you some examples of what you might encounter: Stilton made with unpasteurised milk, lambic beers or bison meat. There's a very good geographical coverage too.

I have read a lot reading this book - I didn't know that sushi rice was the mother of all rice, that apples came from China and Central Asia, or that there was a species of black chicken in South Korea that is revered for its healing properties since the 25th Joseon. I was also pleasantly surprised by how much activism is discussed and encouraged, there are so many inspiring stories about popularising an ingredient and opening it up to the world, such as the Venezuelan Criollo chocolate, or hunting for seeds for species that are no longer found. And even though Germany is around the corner, I didn't know that in Schwabia their diet was at some point based on lentils!

So the information here is intriguing and worthwhile, definitely. The style is a bit repetitive, though. Each of these chapters, focusing on a food, go through how it was discovered, first used, where it grows, under what circumstances, how modern agriculture/farming affected it, and the state of it today. It is such a compendium that it might be better to dip in and out rather than reading it in one go, it could get too much.

Now, the big problems for me are actually the lack of care for sustainability and over-indexing on traditions.

There is one sentence in the opening of the meat section that says that the author does not intend on discussing animal welfare here. If you are going to discuss the future of food, how the planet will continue to function so that food remains sufficient for it's 7 billions and up population, you cannot exclude that. Whether you see it as animal welfare or environmental care, you cannot exclude this massive aspect of discussing food.

And secondly, the blurb tells us that we'll find out about foods that 'hold the secret' to solving the climate change problem. But this is mentioned once or twice, that's it. Most of the foods are advocated to be preserved for diversity - which is very fair, because monocultures cannot fight viruses and diseases - and tradition. In my opinion, tradition has to move with the times. If something becomes unsustainable, a cuisine has to evolve, and that is a strong opinion I hold when it comes to animal farming. We are no longer in a world where a nutritious diet is impossible without harming animals, yet this was not discussed at all.

I'm glad I read it, but it was more of a fact book than a compelling argument or invitation to a discussion.

[Rosie Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eating To Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods And Why We Need To Save Them.

“The source of much of the world’s food – seeds – is mostly in the control of just four corporations; half of all the world’s cheeses are produced with bacteria or enzymes manufactured by a single company; one in four beers drunk around the world is the product of one brewer; most global pork production is based around the genetics of a single breed of pig.”


Once upon a time human diets were extremely varied; food and crops reflected their environments and people ate what was around them. Now, however, the world grows uniform crops of single varieties. Author Dan Saladino says that we have allowed thousands of varieties of wheat to disappear leaving us with just one main type grown in fields the world over. Of 1500 varieties of banana, the world eats just one, the Cavendish.

He points out that one huge concern with growing single variety crops is the dangers of disease. Saladino has discovered that the modern short straw wheat crops are susceptible to a fungus which is spreading, it leaves the grain toxic to humans and animals.

In this book the author has put together a shocking and deeply concerning case that we are killing off our natural food sources with our greed for a few single variety products. We all know about the rainforests being cut down for soya production, but our demand for bananas is no better for the planet. We are also losing the knowledge about what wild foods are edible and how to eat them. Fewer and fewer people know which mushrooms and toadstools are edible, or which wild berries can be eaten. The question is, do we care? Man was created to be a hunter gatherer; in the western world, we don’t even need to leave our home to get our food, it can be delivered to our door!


In a range of interesting chapters Saladino looks at the origins and history of food and how it is disappearing under our very noses as the speed train to extinction goes ever faster; but it won’t just be the extinction of our food sources, we will kill ourselves too if we don’t open our eyes.

This is a big book, and I must admit to leaving it on the bookshelf for a while just because it felt daunting to start, but I do wish I’d read it sooner, it is important for anyone who has an interest in what they eat and what fascinating foods there are, and still could be, across our diverse world.

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't really know much about food production, distribution, or history beyond what I need to know to pick the best I can at the supermarket. I'm also aware that climate change and industry have changed the food available. What I didn't know was to what extent the homogenization of humanity's diet has expanded and the dire straights in which some of the basic elements of my (and most people's) diets are in.
Saladino does a brilliant job of very interestingly presenting the history of different foods along with how we got to where we're at with them and the dangers they face. It never feels like a lecture or a boring slough through facts and figures. It's a celebration of food as told by an individual passionate about the topic he's discussing. How great is he at presenting his information? I am now obsessed with saving an artisanal fish in Japan that's only made by the last man who knows how to make it and is sure to disappear when he's unable to continue. I don't even like fish!
I'm walking away from this for a greater appreciation for all the food I eat and hope to taste one day. I laughed, cried, and walked away with lots of information I plan to think on and discuss with anyone willing to listen. I also have a list of places I need to visit in hopes of supporting the local food and maybe helping these rare foods stick around for a while longer.

The fact that the book is narrated by the author is the cherry on top of how perfect I found this book. You can hear his passion, excitement, and anxiety over the topics he discussed over the course of the book and get pulled into it with him. He really does make you feel for the food that's in danger of being lost forever, be it over global warming, cultural changes, industrialization, or the plethora of incredible reasons why we're slowly losing the food diversity humanity has depended on for millennia.

Extremely happy (if slightly worried) thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the early listen!

[Carly-Ann | carlyisreading · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been listening to Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino (read by Saladino himself) for a while. I listen to it when I'm walking and I've found myself circling blocks and repeating loops in order to consume more of it. Sometimes I circle chapters and loop back on passages to hear parts of it more than once.

This is not a light or easy read, but it is an extremely fascinating one. Saladino walks the reader through a sometimes overwhelming amount of information about the food we eat, its origins, sustainability and threats to or by its existence in the world.

"Over the past several decades, globalization has homogenized what we eat, and done so ruthlessly. The numbers are stark: Of the roughly six thousand different plants once consumed by human beings, only nine remain major staples today. Just three of these—rice, wheat, and corn—now provide fifty percent of all our calories. Dig deeper and the trends are more worrisome still:

The source of much of the world’s food—seeds—is mostly in the control of just four corporations. Ninety-five percent of milk consumed in the United States comes from a single breed of cow. Half of all the world’s cheese is made with bacteria or enzymes made by one company. And one in four beers drunk around the world is the product of one brewer."

Some of my favourite parts include details of how some of most common foods came to be what they are now, stories of people who have committed their lives to protecting and working to establish a future for historical foods, and the ideas and suggestions that are provided when the reader inevitably asks themselves "but what can *I* do?!?"

"If it strikes you that everything is starting to taste the same wherever you are in the world, you’re by no means alone. This matters: when we lose diversity and foods become endangered, we not only risk the loss of traditional foodways, but also of flavors, smells, and textures that may never be experienced again. And the consolidation of our food has other steep costs, including a lack of resilience in the face of climate change, pests, and parasites. Our food monoculture is a threat to our health—and to the planet."

Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them will be out on February 1st and it would be an interesting read for anyone who is curious about the current and future states of the food we eat and the world we live in. Thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan Audio and Farrar, Straus and Geroux Books for the opportunity to listen to this advanced copy.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even if you've read other books about this topic (and are a Michael Pollan fan), this is well worth reading. Saladino travels around the world meeting farmers and artisans dedicated to rescuing local varieties of plants and animal breeds that have been displaced by monocultures and the animals that yield the most milk, eggs or meat for the least amount of resources, to the detriment of, well, the plants, the animals, and everything on a sociocultural and nutritional scale. Not everything will be new information (the sections about bananas, cheese, coffee and tea I was mostly familiar with), but the bits that are, are really interesting.

This book is a call to decolonise farming and food production, to go back to our literal roots, not only to avoid a global food shortage catastrophe that may result from entire food groups being wiped out by a single disease, but to add nutritional and genetic variety back in, to incorporate foraged local foods to our diets whenever possible and to immerse ourselves in our local food cultures. A great read.

[Books, Brews & Booze]

This is a powerful and wildly important read. I would love to see it taught in schools. It contains history we don't read about in history books, but should ... indigenous history, the history of seed savers in wartime (very impressive and emotional).

I appreciate the things the book taught me ... where food comes from, how the lack of diversity happened, and why that is dangerous. And how people have been warning others about it for years.

I do want to mention content warnings. As you may imagine, anytime someone writes about food, we hear about the killing of animals for food consumption. The author does visit slaughterhouses. I can only speak to my sensitivity around those kinds of topics. It is a very high sensitivity. This is my personal opinion ... I did NOT find the level of detail upsetting - we are aware that things happen but didn't delve into details. The situation and reality is upsetting, however, given how important this book is, I understand that it was for a purpose. For insight and hopefully change, for the better.

I encourage everyone to read this book. It will open your eyes, if you'll let it.