About Robert Paarlberg
Robert Paarlberg is an adjunct professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and an associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center.
He has been a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Research Council, a member of the Board of Directors at Winrock International, and a consultant to the International Food Policy Research Institute, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
He is the author of Starved for Science, Food Politics, and The United States of Excess. He lives in Massachusetts.
Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat
A bold, science-based corrective to the groundswell of misinformation about food and how it’s produced, examining in detail local and organic food, food companies, nutrition labeling, ethical treatment of animals, environmental impact, and every other aspect from farm to table
Consumers want to know more about their food–including the farm from which it came, the chemicals used in its production, its nutritional value, how the animals were treated, and the costs to the environment. They are being told that buying organic foods, unprocessed and sourced from small local farms, is the most healthful and sustainable option. Now, Robert Paarlberg reviews the evidence and finds abundant reasons to disagree.
Robert Paarlberg delineates the ways in which global food markets have in fact improved our diet, and how “industrial” farming has recently turned green, thanks to GPS-guided precision methods that cut energy use and chemical pollution.
Robert Paarlberg makes clear that America’s serious obesity crisis does not come from farms, or from food deserts, but instead from “food swamps” created by food companies, retailers, and restaurant chains. And he explains how, though animal welfare is lagging behind, progress can be made through continued advocacy, more progressive regulations, and perhaps plant-based imitation meat.
Robert Paarlberg finds solutions that can make sense for farmers and consumers alike and provides a road map through the rapidly changing worlds of food and farming, laying out a practical path to bring the two together.
Key Takeaways From Resetting The Table
• Eating local: If Americans switched to a diet of only local foods, our overall
nutrition would worsen because of reduced access to fresh fruits and vegetables
during the winter months. This is why the U.S. food system has continued to
globalize, rather than localize. We now import half of our fresh fruit consumption and one-third of our vegetables every year. Fish, another healthy food source, is 80 percent imported now.
• Eating organic: If Americans switched to a diet of only organic foods, our overall nutrition would likely also worsen, because organically grown fruits and vegetables are much more expensive, so we would consume less. Scientists have not been able to certify any significant nutrition benefits from consuming organic foods.
• Farm subsidies: America’s obesity crisis—42% of American adults are now
clinically obese—is not a result of farm subsidies making corn and soybeans
artificially cheap, as it is often believed. In fact, subsidies to farmers almost always make crops artificially expensive.
• Food deserts vs. Food swamps: America’s obesity crisis is not due to “food
deserts.” It isn’t a lack of access to healthy foods that has harmed our diet in recent decades; the problem is being surrounded all day long by too many unhealthy foods—at drug stores, corner stores, fast food chains, and supermarket food courts. The problem isn’t food deserts but food swamps.
• Cost of healthy vs. unhealthy: Healthy foods are not more expensive in dollar
terms per serving than unhealthy foods, and healthy snacks are actually less
expensive than unhealthy snacks. People select unhealthy foods for reasons of taste and convenience, not dollar cost. Food production companies engineer unhealthy snacks for optimal taste, not nutrition
• Imitation meat: Plant-based imitation meats are a smart choice on environmental and animal welfare grounds, but the gain in terms of dietary health is small.
• GMOs are gone: There are no GMO varieties of wheat, rice, or potato being grown commercially for human food anywhere in the world, almost no GMO fruits and vegetables, and no GMO animals. The GMO crops being grown today are mostly used for animal feed, auto fuel, or industrial purposes, not for human food.
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