Fixing the Food System: Changing How We Produce and Consume Food

by Steve Clapp, Marion Nestle (Foreword by)

Overview

America's broken food system has provoked an outcry from consumer advocates seeking to align food policies with public health objectives. This book examines both sides of the conflict for solutions.

Many believe that America's food system is in dire need of reform, with concerns ranging from the obesity epidemic to exploitative labor practices and negative environmental impact. This eye-opening book answers provocative questions about what changes are needed, who is advocating the changes, what parties are opposing these changes (and why), and what a new food system would look like. Organized into three sections, the work identifies the problems with the current system, reviews the changing landscape of food policy, and suggests workable solutions for progress.

Washington insider Steve Clapp takes a comprehensive look at the struggle over the future of food. He examines the vision for a reformed national food policy that includes calculating the true cost of food, providing universal access to healthful food, adopting farm policies supporting public health and environmental objectives, improving food safety, paying fair wages to food employees, treating food animals with compassion, and reducing the food system's carbon footprint. The book explores the ways in which these issues can be resolved, drawing upon lessons learned from the early food advocates of the 1960s and 1970s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440843709
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/14/2016
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Steve Clapp has covered food policy in Washington, DC, for more than 40 years. Formerly, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in northern Nigeria and worked in the Office of Inspection in the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity.

Table of Contents

Foreword Marion Nestle vii

Preface xi

Acronyms xiii

Part I A Broken Food System 1

Chapter 1 Toward a National Food Policy 3

Chapter 2 The Real Cost of Food 13

Chapter 3 The Unfinished Business of Food Safety 25

Chapter 4 Dietary Guidelines Become Fierce Battleground 43

Chapter 5 Marketing to Children in School and Out 57

Chapter 6 Hunger in a Wealthy Society 71

Part II Emergence of Consumer Advocates 81

Chapter 7 Landscape Shift in Food Advocacy 83

Chapter 8 Transforming the U.S. Agriculture Department 99

Chapter 9 Churches, Newspapers, and Universities Get Involved 113

Part III Problems Can Be Solved 127

Chapter 10 The End of Food as We Know It 129

Chapter 11 Some of the Worst jobs in America 141

Chapter 12 Treatment of Food Animals 151

Chapter 13 Food Advocacy Changes America 161

Notes 173

Index 193

What People are Saying About This

Marian Burros

"There is no better person to tell the long and not always encouraging story of how inextricably food and politics have been intertwined for decades."

Danielle Nierenberg

"Steve Clapp has not only put together a how-to guide for eaters, farmers, and policymakers for fixing the broken food system, he's also given us a history of the modern food movement. He's documented the challenges, the obstacles and, most importantly, the solutions."

Al From

"Steve Clapp and I were colleagues in the War on Poverty in the 1960s. Moving from poverty into hunger and malnutrition, he looks at today's food policy crisis with more than four decades of experience."

Ricardo J. Salvador

"An up-to-the-minute tutorial and guide to the leading edge of thinking around one of the more pressing policy imperatives of our times. Clapp's journalistic instincts, expert knowledge, and insider access have produced a thoroughly documented, comprehensive, and balanced assessment of the issues, key protagonists, and contested ideas for fixing our food system."

Carol L. Tucker-Foreman

"Want all Americans to get enough safe, nutritious food, with school lunches promoting children's health over junk food profits? If so, buy this book and launch your campaign."

Dr. Robert S. Lawrence

"A must-read for all concerned with developing a national food policy to improve health, increase food security, and assure sustainability of the food supply."