Stuffed and Starved
Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System
"One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind, and a gift to a world hungering for justice." — Naomi Klein
"The hunger of 800 million happens at the same time as another historical first: that they are out-numbered by the one billion people on this planet who are overweight." — Raj Patel
Here's a book that takes Jamie's Dinners, Supersize Me, mangoes in the Arctic Circle and McFatties, and puts them in a blender to make an intoxicating cocktail. Stuffed & Starved takes us into the supermarket aisles and reveals the stories behind the products in our trolleys, some of them very dark indeed.
Raj Patel's definitive account of the global food system ranges across GM crops, fair trade, rising levels of obesity and other health crises. It's a mad world where we encounter Coca Cola "cosmeceuticals" that promise to improve complexion and breast size, where Nestlé owns Jenny Craig - and Unilever, home of Ben and Jerry's ice-cream, owns Slimfast. It is also a positive story of resistance in the paddy fields of India, the maize ejidos of Mexico and the Italian Slow Food kitchens, to name but a few. This is a groundbreaking look at the people and products of the New Food Order.
Raj Patel has worked for the World Bank, interned at the WTO, consulted for the UN and been involved in international campaigns against his former employers. Currently a researcher at the University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal in South Africa and a visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, his education includes degrees from Oxford, the London School of Economics & Cornell University. Stuffed and Starved is his first book.
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