We have fashioned a country where being surrounded by unending food seems normal. When we feel hungry, we open cupboards, look in refrigerators, or stop at any nearby restaurant or supermarket. Over time, this system has encouraged us to know less about where our food comes from and permitted us to expect more food with less effort. Kevin D. Walker’s The Grand Food Bargain and the Mindless Drive for More shatters this illusion of endless abundance. With this book, Walker cements himself as one of the most remarkable food writers of our time and provides a powerful look at the global consequences of America’s modern food system. The result is a stunning indictment of a system that prioritizes volume over nutrition, low costs over livable wages, and blinds consumers to harmful effects ranging from polluted rivers and food waste to obesity and disappearing species.
A master storyteller, Walker takes readers around the world, from the Kalahari Desert to a Costa Rica banana plantation to craft a sweeping history of our relationship with food. By the end of the journey, we not only understand how the drive to produce ever more food became hardwired into the American psyche, but why shifting our mindset is essential. Walker’s seminal book shows that if each of us decides bigger isn’t always better, we can renegotiate the grand food bargain, one individual decision at a time.
Check out Chapter 4: An Infinite Supply of Finite Resources below, or download the PDF here.
