Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds and Markets

Tim Lang, Michael Heasman

Earthscan, 2004 - Business & Economics - 365 pages

'Food Wars is a heartening book which calls for a radical change in the way the world feeds itself. It offers a blueprint for a future where nobody goes to bed hungry.' Derek Cooper, founder presenter of the BBC's Food Programme 'An important book that should be read by everyone who cares about how the way food is produced affects our own health as well as that of the environment and our national economies.' Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics, and Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University 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.

Contents

• The Food Wars Thesis: 11
• Food policy choices: 13
• Key characteristics of the food supply chain: 15
• time for a new framework?: 16
• The Productionist paradigm: 18
• Two new paradigms of food supply?: 20
• The Life Sciences Integrated paradigm: 21
• The Ecologically Integrated paradigm: 26
• The three paradigms summarized: 28
• Which will dominate?: 30
• The place of food and health in the paradigm framework: 34
• The Life Sciences and Ecologically Integrated paradigms approaches to health: 37
• Ending the Food Wars through policy and evidence: 40
• Capturing the consumer: 41
• Evidencebased policy?: 42
• Diet and Health Diseases and Food: 47
• Introduction: 48
• The nutrition Transition: 53
• underfed and overfed: 60
• The obesity epidemic: 63
• Calculating the burden of dietrelated disease: 70
• Food safety and foodborne diseases: 85
• Inequalities and food poverty: 89
• The changing meanings of food security: 92
• Food poverty in the Western world: 95
• Implications for policy: 96
• Policy Responses to Diet and Disease: 98
• Introduction: 99
• Changing conceptions of health: 100
• Changing conceptions of public health: 101
• a 100years war: 103
• A more sophisticated approach to food and nutrition: 106
• PostWorld War II advances in social nutrition: 108
• targeting populations or at risk groups?: 109
• Dietary guidelines and goals: 111
• The dietary guidelines battle in the US: 113
• The case against the Western diet: 115
• A new approach to the relationship between food diet and health: 117
• a case study of battles over policy responses to a problem: 120
• Public policy responses to obesity: 121
• Industry response: 123
• The Food Wars Business: 126
• The origins of the industrial food supply: 128
• Why health is important to the food industry: 134
• The changing context for the global food economy: 135
• Remarkable changes in agriculture and food production: 137
• Understanding the modern food system: 139
• The emergence of food company clusters: 141
• Farming becoming irrelevant: 147
• A new health colonialism?: 151
• The global scope and activity of food processors: 153
• Longterm structural change in food manufacturing and processing: 155
• Changing company cultures for the 21st century: 157
• From globalization to localization: 158
• Rapid consolidation and concentration in food retailing: 160
• Food retailers and their suppliers: 164
• The scale of the food service industries: 167
• The politics of GM biotechnology and the growth in organics: 173
• Summary and conclusion: 182
• The Consumer Culture War: 184
• a done deal for the consumer?: 186
• Consuming wants and needs: 188
• Burgerized politics: 189
• The new consumer web and competing models: 192
• Schizophrenic consumers?: 194
• Moulding food culture: 197
• Food advertising and education: 198
• redefining food marketing: 203
• Cooking and food culture: 207
• Shopping spending the food: 209
• Food activism and the role of NGOs: 210
• The Quality War Putting Public and Environmental Health Together: 214
• Introduction: 215
• Can consumers save the planet?: 218
• Intensification: 219
• Food and biodiversity: 221
• Water: 224
• Pollution and pesticides: 225
• Waste: 228
• Soil and land: 229
• Climate change: 230
• Urban drift: 231
• Energy and efficiency: 233
• Eating up the fish?: 242
• Meat: 248
• a UK case study: 250
• have humans got the wrong bodies?: 254
• Food Democracy of Food Control?: 257
• Why is governance an issue?: 258
• Civil society emerges: 262
• Building on existing policy commitments: 263
• How global institutions frame food and health: 265
• Global standards: 267
• the EU case: 269
• Agriculture subsidies and health: 271
• Injecting the new health into national institutions: 275
• food democracy versus food control: 279
• Human liberty and consumer choice: 280
• Conclusion: 281
• The Future: 283
• Introduction: 284
• Which paradigm will triumph?: 285
• The paradigmatic analysis: 289
• Questions emerging from civil society: 293
• What of the future?: 300
• Looking for a political lead: 301
• Notes and References: 308
• Index: 358

Popular passages

Page xiv - O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand (For what can war, but endless war still breed ?) Till truth and right from violence be freed, And public faith cleared from the shameful brand Of public fraud. In vain doth valour bleed, While avarice and rapine share the land.‎

Page 310 - Obesity and poverty: A new public health challenge. Washington, DC, Pan American Sanitary Bureau, Regional Office of the World Health Organization, Scientific Publication No.‎

Bibliographic information

• Title: Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds and Markets
• Authors: Tim Lang, Michael Heasman
• Editors: Tim Lang, Michael Heasman
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Earthscan, 2004
• ISBN: 1853837024, 9781853837029
• Length: 365 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Industries / Food Industry; Business & Economics / International / Marketing; Computers / Software Development & Engineering / General; Law / International; Mathematics / General; Medical / Public Health; Political Science / General; Technology & Engineering / Agriculture / General; Technology & Engineering / Food Science / General