Not On The Label

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Eric Schlosser · 383 pages

To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar Amerca. Though created by a handful of mavericks, the fast food industry has triggered the homogenization of our society. Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled the juggernaut of American cultural imperialism ab

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Michael Pollan · 244 pages

What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the que

Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food

Eric Schlosser, Charles Wilson · 304 pages

A behind-the-scenes look at the fast food industry. This book reveals the truth about what lurks between those sesame seed buns, what a chicken "nugget" really is, and how the fast food industry has been feeding off children for generations. The coauthor is Charles Wilson.

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table

Tracie McMillan · 330 pages

"In 2009 McMillan embarked on a groundbreaking undercover journey to see what it takes to eat well in America. For nearly a year, she worked, ate, and lived alongside the working poor to examine how Americans eat when price matters"--Jacket.

Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

Tom Mueller · 238 pages

For millennia, fresh olive oil has been one of life's necessities, not just as food but also as medicine, a beauty aid, and a vital element of religious ritual. Today's researchers are continuing to confirm the remarkable, life giving properties of true extra-virgin, and "extra-virgin Italian" has become the highest standard of quality. But what if this symbol of purity has become deeply corrupt?

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Michael Moss · 480 pages

Eating Animals

Jonathan Safran Foer · 341 pages

After spending much of his life shifting between various omnivore and herbivore eating habits, the author presents a thought provoking look at why and how humans choose their diets. Delivering the pros and cons of eating meat, he invites readers on an insightful exploration into the many facets of food. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir, and his own detective work,

Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit

Barry Estabrook · 256 pages

Investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry and the price we pay as a society when we take taste and thought out of our food purchases.

The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business

Christopher Leonard · 384 pages

In The Meat Racket, investigative reporter Christopher Leonard delivers the first-ever account of how a handful of companies have seized the nation's meat supply. He shows how they built a system that puts farmers on the edge of bankruptcy, charges high prices to consumers, and returns the industry to the shape it had in the 1900s before the meat monopolists were broken up. At the dawn of the 21st

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

Dan Koeppel · 281 pages

A gripping biological detective story that uncovers the myth, mystery, and endangered fate of the world's most humble fruitTo most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows

The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption, and the Control of the World's Food Supply

Marie-Monique Robin

Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment

David Kirby · 510 pages

Massive fish kills from flesh-eating parasites. Unusual concentrations of cancer and other diseases. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly E-coli bacterial contamination. Recent public health crises raise urgent questions about how our animal-derived food is raised and brought to market. This book is about our American food system gone terribly wrong--and the people who are fi

The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket

Benjamin Lorr · 328 pages

Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do About It

Larry Olmsted · 318 pages

"You've seen the headlines: Parmesan cheese made from wood pulp. Lobster rolls containing no lobster at all. Extra-virgin olive oil that isn't. So many fake foods are in our supermarkets, our restaurants, and our kitchen cabinets that it's hard to know what we're eating anymore. In Real Food/Fake Food, award-winning journalist Larry Olmsted convinces us why real food matters and empowers consumers

Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It

Karl Weber · 321 pages

From the Publisher: Food, Inc. is guaranteed to shake up our perceptions of what we eat. This powerful documentary deconstructing the corporate food industry in America was hailed by Entertainment Weekly as "more than a terrific movie-it's an important movie." Aided by expert commentators such as Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, the film poses questions such as: Where has my food come from, and

Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat

Philip Lymbery, Isabel Oakeshott · 448 pages

Farmageddon is a fascinating and terrifying investigative journey behind the closed doors of a runaway industry across the world - from the UK, Europe and the USA, to China, Argentina, Peru and Mexico. It is both a wake-up call to change our current food production and eating practices and an attempt to find a way to a better farming future.--COVER.

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion

Elizabeth L. Cline · 258 pages

Evaluates the costs of low-priced clothing while tracing the author's own transformation to a conscientious shopper, a journey during which she visited a garment factory, learned to resole shoes, and shopped for local, sustainable clothing.

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power

Steve Coll · 704 pages

Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil

Peter Maass · 276 pages

Oil is the substance that allows our world to work. Over the course of a century it has taken on such a variety of functions that even a small decrease in oil output would cause economic chaos and nightmarish shortages. We know, of course, that this reliance is a disaster but what we are perhaps less clear about is the terrible damage done by oil to those countries that produce it: the people who

The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor

Mark Schatzker · 272 pages

"In The Dorito Effect, Mark Schatzker shows us how our approach to the nation's number one public health crisis has gotten it wrong. The epidemics of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are not tied to the overabundance of fat or carbs or any other specific nutrient. Instead, we have been led astray by the growing divide between flavor--the tastes we crave--and the underlying nutrition" -- provid

American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food

Jonathan Bloom · 372 pages

American Wasteland chronicles how we waste food from farm to fork and examines the impact of our squandering. With an upbeat tone, the book offers suggestions on how we -- as a nation and as individuals -- can trim our waste. A word of warning: It's a book that forces you to reconsider your approach to food. Because once you're looking for food waste, it's hard to miss. - Publisher.

The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine

Benjamin Wallace · 336 pages

It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold. In 1985, a 1787 bottle of Cha^teau Lafite Bordeaux--one of a cache unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson--sold at auction for $156,000. The discoverer of the bottle was pop-band manager turned wine collector Hardy Rodenstock, who had a knack for finding extremely old and exquisite wines. But rumors soon a

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It

Marcia Angell · 327 pages

During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless in

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt

Michael Lewis · 320 pages

Argues that post-crisis Wall Street continues to be controlled by large banks and explains how a small, diverse group of Wall Street men have banded together to reform the financial markets.