Food Wars
The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds and Markets
Tim Lang and Michael Heasman
The emergence of global markets has a far-reaching impact on what we eat and on health, food security, social justice and quality of life. What matters now is not just what we eat, but how and where it has been produced, distributed and processed, and the assumptions upon which this production is based - a global politics of food and health. Food Wars argues that two conflicting paradigms (one developing food through integrating the 'life sciences', the other though 'ecology') are battling to replace the dominant industrial-productionist model of the 20th century, both grappling to attract investment, public support and policy legitimacy over the appropriate use of biology and food technologies.
Reviews
'Food Wars provides a compelling new vision of what the purposes and impact of food and agricultural policies should be. It is a vision that considers environmental enhancement, hunger reduction, profitability and improved health as all having a place. This book will move us towards a revolution in food, nutrition and agricultural policy that is decades overdue.'
Derek Yach, Professor of Public Health and Head of the Division of Global Health, Yale, former Executive Director of Noncommunicable Diseases, World Health Organization
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Tim Lang is Professor of Food Policy, City University, London. He is co-editor (with Erik Millstone) of The Atlas of Food (Earthscan, 2003) and co-author (with Yiannis Gabriel) of The Unmanageable Consumer (Sage, 1995)
Michael Heasman is a writer and researcher on food and health, and Visiting Research Fellow, City University, London. He is co-author (with Julian Mellentin) of The Functional Foods Revolution (Earthscan, 2001) and co-author (with Ben Fine and Judith Wright) of Consumption in the Age of Affluence (Routledge, 1996)
Introduction * The Food Wars Thesis * Diet and Health: Diseases and Food * Policy Responses to Diet and Disease * The Food Wars Business * The Consumer Culture War * The Quality War: Putting Public and Environmental Health Together * Food Democracy or Food Control? * The Future * Notes and References * Index