- Title: Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal
- Author: Mark Bittman
- Pages: 384
- Publisher (Publication Date): Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (February 2, 2021)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10, ISBN-13 or ASIN: 1328974626
- Download File Format:EPUB
From hunting and gathering to GMOs and ultraprocessed foods, this expansive tour of human history rewrites the story of our species—and points the way to a better future.
The history of Homo sapiens is usually told as a story of technology or economics. But there is a more fundamental driver: food. How we 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, one that’s driving both climate change and global health crises. Best-selling food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of the story and explains how we can rescue ourselves from the modern wrong turn.