Behind the Scenes: The Hidden Systems That Power Our Everyday Lives: Food

What does it take to run the American supermarket? How do products get to shelves? Who sets the price? And who suffers the consequences of increased convenience end efficiency? In this alarming exposae, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on this highly secretive industry. Lorr leads a wild investigation in which we learn: The secrets of Trader Joe's success from Trader Joe himself, Why truckers call their job "sharecropping on wheels," What it takes for a product to earn certification labels like "organic" and "fair trade."

Uncovers the inequities of restaurant labor in the United States, from low wages and poor employee benefits to sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions, and the hypocrisy of ethical, free-trade restaurants.

Traces the rise of the processed food industry and how addictive salt, sugar, and fat have enabled its dominance in the past half century, revealing deliberate corporate practices behind current trends in obesity, diabetes, and other health challenges.

An independent journalist and nutrition expert discusses how the industrial food system is causing a deterioration of the nutritional content in food as well as altering its composition by adding thousands of chemicals, from pesticides to packaging.

From global agribusiness to what’s in the pantry, an expert in animal agriculture surveys the personal and global consequences of America’s food system, and takes readers around the world to look closely at aspects of pollution, endangered species, human health, policies, legislation, and market forces, as well as how our attitudes to food and abundance have changed.

Financial journalist Chloe Sorvino presents an expansive view of the meat industry and its future as its fundamental weaknesses are laid bare for all to see. Years of consolidation, price-fixing, and power grabs by elite industry insiders have harmed consumers and caused environmental destruction. Americans have no idea where their meat comes from. And while that’s hurting us, it’s also making others rich.

An acclaimed journalist uses the story of Hormel Foods and soaring recession-era demand for its most famous product, Spam, to probe the state of the meatpacking industry, including the expansion of agribusiness and the effects of immigrant labor on Middle America, and expose such alarming trends as pollution, abused animals and more.

Over the past century, new farming methods, feed additives, and social and economic structures have radically transformed agriculture around the globe, often at the expense of human health. In Chickenizing Farms and Food, Ellen K. Silbergeld reveals the unsafe world of chickenization—big agriculture’s top-down, contract-based factory farming system—and its negative consequences for workers, consumers, and the environment.