bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57324-575-3 (alk. paper)
1. Food habits—United States. 2. Food industry and trade—United States. 3. Meat industry and trade—United States. 4. Food contamination—United States. 5. Food adulteration and inspection—United States. 6. Animal welfare—United States. I. Title.
TX371.R634 2012
394.1’20973--dc23
2011053160
Cover design by Stewart Williams
Cover photograph © Mary R. Vogt/morgue files
Interior by Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Typeset in Janson Text with Gotham HTF
Printed in the United States of America
MAL
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).
Contents
Part One: Caring for All Creatures
1 The Metamorphosis of a Pig Farmer
2 Eggs and the Chickens Who Lay Them
Part Two: What Are We Putting into Our Bodies?
4 Health Food or Harm Food? The Truth about Soy
6 It's Not about Size, It's about Health: Obesity and Food Choices
7 The Skinny on Grass-fed Beef
8 Are Factory Farms Becoming Biological Weapons Factories?
9 Greed and Salmonella: A Deadly Duo
10 Infants Growing Breasts: The Trouble with Hormones in Our Milk
11 Is Your Favorite Ice Cream Made with Monsanto's Artificial Hormones?
12 The Startling Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate
Part Three: Industrial Food Production—and Other Dirty Dealings
13 No Sweetness Here: Chocolate and 21st-Century Slavery
14 Bitter Beans: Why Fair Trade Coffee Matters So Much
17 The Battle for Our Children
Part Four: Being Human in This Troubled World
19 Remembering How Much Relationships Matter
20 Do Friends Let Friends Eat Junk Food?
23 Stronger at the Broken Places
Further Reading and Other Resources
Introduction
IT CAN FEEL LIKE A WAR OUT THERE. Who would have guessed that First Lady Michelle Obama was doing anything offensive when, shortly after her husband became president, she planted an organic garden on the White House lawn? It seemed innocuous, much like Lady Bird Johnson's campaign to beautify the nation's cities and highways by planting wildflowers, or Laura Bush's support for childhood literacy.
But CropLife America, a trade association representing Monsanto and other makers of pesticides and genetically modified (GMO) food, was outraged. They angrily wrote the First Lady and widely broadcast their view that her organic garden was unfairly maligning chemical agriculture. They demanded that she use “crop-protection technologies,” otherwise known as pesticides.
From the degree of umbrage they took, you'd
