The Fate of Food

The Fate of Food is one of those books that hurls you back and forth between wonder and shock. From the scale of food waste (a third of all we produce) to the brilliance of vertical farming. From the horror of droughts to the controversial brilliance of GMO. From the disgust of industrial agriculture to the genius of lab-grown meat. Whenever you reach the depths of 'how are we ever going to get out of this?' a new, or very old, story of food is shared through an individual human journey and then at scale, that gives you genuine hope and, in the case of 3D printed foods, wide-eyed amazement. Amanda was an effervescent and generous guest author at our April meetup. Spilling a 1000-words-per-minute (like BPM but author talk) on us, sharing the breadth and depth of her curiosity and experience. I left the conversation hungry; for more ideas about how to fix our broken food systems, for more things I can do in my weekly shop, for more ways to encourage others to explore one of the most important topics of our time. "A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into. A man dies and is buried, and all his words and actions are forgotten, but the food he has eaten lives after him in the sound or rotten bones of his children. I think it could be argued that changes of diet are more important than changes of dynasty or even religion...yet it is curious how seldom the all-importance of food is recognised." George Orwell, Road to Wigan Pier (p.260 Fate of Food)