The most recommended books about the food industry

I'm a research scientist who has worked on the interface of many biological, environmental, social, and economic disciplines seeking more sustainable and yet productive forms of agriculture in the tropics and subtropics. With numerous colleagues, I've tried to find ways to right many of the wrongs that have affected the critical food and non-food needs of the world’s poorest and marginalized farmers. This also has the potential to heal much of the environmental degradation and social deprivation in our troubled and dysfunctional world. Along the way, I've had an unusual and privileged research career travelling in remote corners of the world and meeting the people most in need of help from international decision makers.

I’m an investigative journalist who focuses on the intersection of finance, wealth accounting, and climate change. I head up food and agriculture coverage at Forbes, and have been reporting on the wealth and power hiding within the food industry for nearly a decade. I’ve been called a billionaire whisperer, and have a knack for getting folks to talk. Based in New York City, I’m a member of a Lower East Side community-supported agriculture share and keep composting worms on my terrace garden. 

I was lucky enough to be introduced to medieval Welsh literature when I was an undergraduate, and the Welsh language mesmerised me. It is so unlike any other language that I had come across and translating texts from Welsh into English was as absorbing as code-cracking. My apprenticeship as a scholar was long and hard and I soon realised that my particular contribution was to make Welsh literature accessible to non-Welsh speakers, not simply through translations, but by aligning the Welsh tradition with the wider literary cultures of Europe. I want Wales and its two literatures to take their place as two of the great literatures of Europe.

I got hooked on breastfeeding when, during my health visitor training, our class had a lecture from Drs. Penny and Andrew Stanway, who wrote the original Breast is Best. I breastfed my own children, became a breastfeeding counsellor and lactation consultant (IBCLC), and championed breastfeeding as a health visitor and midwife. I then worked for 14 years with the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative, teaching and supporting healthcare staff to improve standards of care for breastfeeding mothers and babies. Throughout, I gained a huge respect for babies’ abilities in relation to breastfeeding. This directly influenced my belief in their capacity to continue feeding themselves when they start solid food, which is my current focus.

In the late 1980s, I led a team of researchers who studied relations between Vietnamese refugees, Hispanic immigrants, and native-born residents of Garden City, Kansas, many of whom came to work in what was then the world’s largest beef packing plant. I became fascinated by the meat and poultry industry. Since then, I have studied industry impacts on communities, plant workers, farmers and ranchers in Nebraska, Oklahoma, and my hometown in Kentucky. The meat and poultry industry is highly concentrated, heavily industrialized, and heavily reliant on immigrant labor. As such, it has much to teach us about where our food comes from and how it is made.  

I’ve been fascinated with the science and psychology behind sugar addiction ever since I started graduate school at Princeton University. When I was deciding what to study for my dissertation. I knew my topic needed to be something big, important, and meaningful. At the time, we were starting to hear about the dangers of obesity, and I wondered if it was due to our changing food environment, which had more and more sugar in it. I never would have imagined that this project would lead me to over 20 years of research. Learn all about it in my book Sugarless. 

Professionally, I am a Professor of Toxicology (Emeritus) at the Johns Hopkins University. I devoted my professional career to improving the science of toxicology by developing a program that evaluated risk using non-animal methods. As such, I founded The JHU Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT). In addition, I spent the latter part of my career on Food Ethics. In short, my life work was devoted to animals and better foods. In 2022, the American Visionary Art Museum of Baltimore awarded me an Ambassador of Compassion. 

My life's work has been to educate and encourage others to take food into their own hands with the intention of reclaiming real nutrition and declaring independence from the conventional food system. I'm humbled by the fact that my DIY Kombucha business has been successful, and it means that enough people are realizing the importance of intentionality when considering the food and drink we put in our bodies. I'd say that our motto of "Changing the world, one gut at a time" accurately represents what we're doing every day.

Professionally, I am a Professor of Toxicology (Emeritus) at the Johns Hopkins University. I devoted my professional career to improving the science of toxicology by developing a program that evaluated risk using non-animal methods. As such, I founded The JHU Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT). In addition, I spent the latter part of my career on Food Ethics. In short, my life work was devoted to animals and better foods. In 2022, the American Visionary Art Museum of Baltimore awarded me an Ambassador of Compassion. 

I have been reading, researching, and writing on the limitations of market capitalism and the unique and important role of government in meeting public needs for almost 30 years. I have come to firmly believe that we can’t – as a nation and planet – solve our most pressing problems without rebuilding trust in government and the capacity and authority of governing institutions. We can’t eliminate poverty, eradicate structural racism, protect our environment and the planet without democratic institutions that have the power to do so. We need markets, but transferring too much power to the market has created many of the problems we face today.