Review: How the World Eats

Julian Baggini. How the World Eats:  A Global Food Philosophy.  Pegasus Books.  New York.  2025.  ISBN: 978-1-63936-819-8.

Richard Zimmer (Sonoma State University)

What does a philosopher have to say about world food issues?  Everything.  Julian Baggini addresses current food and policy  issues comprehensively and ethically  in a readable and informative format. His book should be read by researchers, activists, policy makers and concerned citizens interested in addressing food issues to find solutions. 

Baggini reviews and explicates most of human food history to argue for holistic thinking about all aspects of food:  “The  nature of each individual thing, person or animal is determined by how it stands in relation  to other things” (355).  The key is circulatory: “Any sustainable food system requires a balance of inputs and outputs, and historically the best way to achieve this has been through regenerative cycles” (355-6).   He follows  Tom Standage in An Edible History of Humanity :  “The future of food production, and of mankind, surely lies in the wide and fertile ground in between [organic fundamentalism and biotechnology]” (357). In simple words, there are middle grounds.

Hunter-gatherers are the place where Baggini begins his argument.  Using the Maasai  [his spelling], he uses historical and ethnographic data, ethics, and logical analyses to present a picture of a society mostly in balance with its  animal  environment.  The Maasai slaughter cattle for food and kill lions for ritual purposes (35).  Their world is in harmony with available meat food supplies, given the ceremonial use of lion parts.  It works, which is a key towards his approach to the larger issues that food in all its aspects face in general.  

Baggini  traces the history of all  aspects of food production from earlier humans.   Given the massive changes released by farming, he  portrays an ultimately complicated  picture of feeding more people more variety.  But doing so is often at the expense of the land, the people, and the food itself.  Land has been overused and  often harmed, the people exploited, and its food less nutritious.  Moreover, starting in recent times, big business took over, providing both opportunities and exploitation for labor and the environment.

One example is the development of GMOs (genetically modified organisms).  Baggini carefully traces out the reasons for their development, suggesting that in many cases they are superior to “natural”  organisms.  They thrive better and have been more plentiful.  But they are controlled by large corporations which have profit in mind and have often restricted their usage (Chapter 14). 

Social trends can also affect food production and consumption.  Different  cultures and subcultures believe that specific foods and/or specific ingredients make them healthier.  Baggini reviews the evidence and research for those claims (e.g., 24). He suggests that in general, with some exceptions like scurvy and rickets, most of the beliefs about the virtues of eating specific diets are not scientifically based and can be destructive.  People’s bodies are complex and are often changing, and not enough research has been done to validate specific diets, like naturalism (Chapter 16).  Too many and too much processed foods, such as processed cheese equivalents,  can be unhealthy (347-8).

What Baggini proposes is moving  in a balanced and cautious way.  All aspects of the food cycle are composed of parts in a systemic relationship.  We do not know all the effects of any change, but we know some of them, such as depleting the rainforests.  We need to feed a growing population, most of whom do not produce their own food.   We do not know all the properties of different kinds of foods working nutritionally for each individual person.  But there is a strong  beginning answer:   “Positive change depends only on people recognizing the values we already hold are discordant with the food system that we have and that values and practices can be brought into harmony by a series of adjustments, some radical, but all ad hoc and doable” (364).  He is optimistic because he sees that this can be understood and implemented.

Baggini’s work is important for several reasons.  It is comprehensive and balanced.  It draws on past historical and anthropological research and current studies—with an extensive bibliography.  Furthermore, Baggini includes first-person accounts from people to whom he talked involved in all aspects of food.  He provides a significant contrast to American readers with detailed accounts of English,  European, and other geographic areas’  food policies and practices as an aid to understanding successful policies which follow his recommendations for a “middle ground,”  based on the best current science.