Resetting The Table [Review]
I finished the book Resetting The Table, by Robert Paarlberg today. I thought it was a good book.
Here are the notes I took on this book:
- (page 22) well I guess the US sucks at eating well and just eating
- ch 1 -- was about farming and farms in general.
- ch 2 -- rather than blaming food obesity issues on the farmers that make the food, maybe focus on the industries that convert that food into product; notably, restaurants are incentivized to put additives (salt, msg) into food excessively. Also there might be too many snacks all around.
- ch 3 -- the local farming landscape looks bleak. local is more 'natural' and supporting local businesses and stuff but economies of scale really just make this uneconomically viable. furthermore, local food usually requires more farmland + effort and food outbreaks are much harder to contain and stop.
- ch 4 -- Paarlberg argues that the panic for organic is misguided; he cites that while organic is organic and is closer to nature, it requires SO MUCH more manpower and geographic field area; organicing everything would most likely be unsustainable and there's no real evidence that says organic crops are on the whole better than crops grown using non-organic methods (non-organic fertilizer for example). Honestly, after reading this chapter and this book, I am inclined to agree with this.
- ch 5 -- Industrial farming is |good| in terms of its productivity, impact on the world, and resource usage; manpower and land are significantly reduced. Notably, this chapter is dedicated to rallying against "regressionists", those that advocate against the green movement which makes them like the organic movement and local food movement but on steroids.
- ch 6 -- Paarlberg talks about how GMOs got fear-mongered out of the market. I think things here are slightly exaggerated, and there are good points to either side; why should we be eating food that hasn't been tried and tested? On the contrary, it is most likely true that interest groups and lobbyist smothered GMOs for some other reasons. Paarlberg also talks a bit about CRISPR and future technologies going that way.
- ch 7 -- Farm animal living circumstances and ethics are complicated.
- ch 8 -- the brave new future of food. Paarlberg basically says "take everything with some salt" and also examines the ways that farming might improve in the future, with drones and automated systems and genetically modified animals that might increase our food per animal and make raising animals easier.
Overall, good book. I was interested in farming, now I'm more interested in farming, and this book gives a good overview of the food/crops landscape. I give this book a 9.6/10.