Investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry and the price we pay as a society when we take taste and thought out of our food purchases.

Social and economic systems worldwide are changing rapidly. These changes are accompanied by an increasing demand for natural resources, including land, water, minerals, energy sources, food and timber. Today's foremost challenge lies in finding the tools to address the complexity of these interrelated trends, and in implementing strategies to balance environmental and socioeconomic needs. This volume contributes to this search by presenting original...

How humankind first hunted and gathered explains our emergence as a new species and our earliest technology. Our first food systems, from fire to agriculture, tell where we settled and how civilizations expanded. The quest for food for growing populations drove exploration, colonialism, slavery, even capitalism. A century ago, food was industrialized. Since then, new styles of agriculture and food production have written a new chapter of human history,...

Written for middle-grade readers, Eat Up! is a colorful infographic look at the many surprising and fascinating facts about food. Information is presented in easy-to-understand graphics and clear explanations. Each spread explores a different aspect of the topic. Readers will find answers to a wide range of questions, including: Who grows our food? Where does our meat and fish come from? How does it get to us? What's the difference between a hybrid...

"A radically practical guide to making food choices that are are good for you, others, and the planet. Is organic really worth it? Are eggs ok to eat? If so, which ones are best for you, and for the chicken--Cage-Free, Free-Range, Pasture-Raised? What about farmed salmon, soy milk, sugar, gluten, fermented foods, coconut oil, almonds? Thumbs-up, thumbs-down, or somewhere in between? Using three criteria--Is it good for me? Is it good for others?...

When the author, a Columbia professor, set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big, he thought up. His stroke of genius, the vertical farm, has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. These multi-story intensely managed indoor farms, grown inside skyscrapers, are capable of producing traditional greenhouse crops, as well as pigs and fowl, year-round. They would provide solutions to...

More than a decade after Michael Pollan's game-changing The Omnivore's Dilemma transformed the conversation about what we eat, a combination of global diet trends and corporate interests have put American agriculture into a state of "quiet emergency," from dangerous drought in California--which grows more than 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables we eat--to catastrophic topsoil loss in the "breadbasket" heartland of the United States. Whether or...

"The rising movement of regenerative agriculture--a holistic approach to growing food that restores soil and biodiversity and could even reverse global warming--holds great promise for transforming our food system while reclaiming planetary and human health. Yet there is a little-known fact that could amplify the call for change: Within a decade, nearly half of all farmland in America will change hands as the older generation of farmers steps aside....