Diet for a Dead Planet

Reviewed by Erica Wetter
06.21.05

Christopher D. Cook’s new book Diet for a Dead Planet is definitely not for the weak of stomach. From mad cow to meat packing and pesticides to farm subsidies, the book offers a troubling but comprehensive overview of the many ills plaguing America’s diseased food industry. Beginning with the supermarket and ending with the global agricultural market, Cook inspects each facet of our complex food system and reveals that the cheap, processed food we enjoy daily has costly social, economic, and environmental consequences that reverberate globally. His findings are alarming, to say the least.

Consider some of the numbers that reveal the startling scope of the problems we face. Each year, 75 million Americans are sickened by the food they eat; an estimated 67 million birds are killed by the millions of pounds of toxic agricultural pesticides sprayed on crops; and factory farms confining cattle, hogs, chickens, and turkeys produce enough manure waste to fill 52 million large 18-wheeler semi-trucks—a “convoy of excrement,” as Cook says. Corporate agri-giants like ConAgra, Premium Standard Farms (PSF), Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland increasingly dominate the food scene, devastating small family farms and wreaking havoc on the environment. Every half hour, one small family farm folds under the pressures exerted from the increasing corporate control of agriculture. Those farmers that remain take home only about 19 cents per food dollar spent by the average consumer (this is in comparison to 37 cents in 1980 and 47 cents in 1952). Expensive slotting fees charged by grocery stores for product placement destroy the hopes of any independent producers who try to sell their products directly to grocery stores. Government farm subsidies, mostly directed to the wealthiest producers, further handicap small-scale producers.

Taken all together, the message couldn’t be clearer: Just about every arm of our food production system has a heart monitor beeping with the warning signs of death. Cook’s title, it turns out, isn’t the exaggerated scare tactic it at first seems to be.

But Diet for a Dead Planet goes well beyond a statistical catalogue of the horrifying problems disrupting the food production system. The book also provides a critical summary of the history of farming in the US and the way food production has turned into such a mess of pesticides, factory farms, subsidies, and corporate control. Whether it be the injustices done to migrant farm and factory workers, or the effects of exporting heavily subsidized American foodstuffs to rural communities abroad, Cook attempts to touch on it all. As could be expected in a project of such breadth, Cook gives grateful nods to many of his food and environmental muckraking predecessors, referencing and relying upon Rachel Carson, Frances Moore Lappé (who blurbed the book and whose famous work, Diet for a Small Planet, inspired the title), Michael Pollan, and Eric Schlosser to state his case. He also makes a convincing, if disturbing plea that our current food system is in dire need of a complete turnaround. The problem is trying to envision a new path, which Cook somewhat feebly attempts to do in one short end chapter and a resource guide.

Frankly, after reading 12 chapters graphically detailing the history and scope of the problems afflicting our food system, I wasn’t optimistic about the world’s ability to forge a more sustainable, healthy, and just approach to food. Sure, there are farmers’ markets, organic products, and numerous nonprofits working to bandage the sick system, but, after 200 pages of depressing news, it was hard to muster any hope that people will ever be able to unravel the nightmare. Cook acknowledges the difficulty of the situation, and argues that in order for us to change course, we need to focus on fixing not just one problem—like the exploitation of migrant farm and factory workers, or agricultural pollution—but the entire system. In his words, we need “a whole new way of thinking about food, one that encompasses health, affordability, accessibility, ecological sustainability, and an economics that enables farmers to keep farming.” In short, we need to make dramatic changes to our national priorities and recognize that food is more than a profit-producing object—it’s an essential element of life.

While Diet for a Dead Planet is certainly not uplifting, it does inspire a certain amount of rage, fear, and nausea—all of which may be necessary to shake America out of its glazed complacency in regard to food. With mad cow disease, genetically modified organisms, and agricultural-related pollution increasingly all over news headlines, Cook’s book is definitely a timely reference for those hoping to delve into the food hell we’ve found ourselves in, and begin the process of re-evaluating the role of food and farming in America.