Back down to Earth - Rated 
Everytime someone shoves me in the frozen food aisle at Sainsbury's, or I see a picture Gordon Brown smiling, or another 200 or 2000 troops get sent to Iraq - I think, "Screw it! I'm just going to stop contributing to this intoxicating globalised society and just go be a farmer for the rest of my life!" Well, it turns out you're just as subject to the banal horrors of Corporatism in overalls as you are in a business suit. This is good to realise, and encourages me to be a different/better kind of consumer in real life, not just in my dream world. Thanks Raj.
Timely, wide-reaching and a real wake-up call - Rated 
Excellent. A must read. Anyone who is interested in what they eat, where it comes from, and how it reaches us should read this book. And be very worried.
Another predictable Globalisation basher - Rated 
Being written by a former World Bank employee, i thought this book would offer a balanced analysis of the global food productiion system. Sadly, this is just another self-righeous, ahistorical, and simplistic critique of Globalisation. Apart from rare informative moments (chapters on soya beans and supermarkets for example), its pages are filled with the struggles between the 'good', dignified small farmers and 'bad', greedy corporations. The basic contention is for us, 'the people' to 'take back' control of our food supply chains, as if citizens of any modern society in history ever had such power. The author rightly points out the high level of suicides among the farmers and blames it on rampant capitalism. However, he fails to mention that farming in America had been the most suicide-prone vocation since the records began. For those who think that they are saving the world by buying local carrots and who like to take Fair Trade sugar with their organic cappucinos, this book might be able to pacify guilty consciousness. However, if you are looking for an authoritative, fair assesment of complex issues surrounding food production, stay clear of this one.
Lifting the lid on your TV dinner - Rated
A sweeping and passionate exposition of the global food system, 'Stuffed and Starved' is a masterly work that underlines why what we eat is so fundamental to who we are.
Patel's book lucidly and comprehensively deconstructs the idea that our current system is the only way, and the supermarket the only viable purveyor, to put food on our tables. He tracks the global food industry from grower to exporter, retailer to consumer, highlighting the many points at which the system is unsustainable, desperately exploitative, and, ultimately, frighteningly vulnerable.
Whether Patel is writing about urban gardening in south central Los Angeles, soy plantations in South America or the tragic plight of rural farmers in India, his voice is one suffused with a deep and lyrical compassion. And it's this humanity - and his hope that, however unlikely, another way lies within our reach - that makes 'Stuffed and Starved' truly special.
The best thing I've read since Naomi Klein's 'No Logo', Stuffed and Starved will shock, fascinate, anger and inspire you.
Don't trust your food to capitalism - Rated
Superbly written, well researched, and ambitious in its scope, Stuffed and Starved is an eye-opening exploration of capitalism's logic when it comes to food.
The title comes from the striking fact that Patel takes as his starting point - that there are 800 million hungry people in the world, and a billion overweight people. He proceeds to unpack this fact in the rest of the book, touching on the rise of ubiquitous ingredients such as soy or corn syrup, supermarkets, genetic engineering, and the economics at work behind these developments. I found the sections on the supply chain particularly good.
Patel doesn't need to ram his points home or play the guilt card. He presents the facts and the need for change is evident. Those changes, he suggests, include eating locally, rediscovering food as a pleasure, breaking the power of supply monopolies, and ensuring a living wage for everyone along the chain of production.
As a writer based in South Africa who has worked for the World Bank, Raj Patel is well placed to speak to both sides of the development debate. He has done so compellingly, and I will keep an eye out for anything he writes in the future.
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