Food And Power

Food Power brings together the history of food, agriculture, and foreign policy to explore the use of food to promote American national security and national interests during the first three decades of the Cold War.

The relationship between development and democratization remains one of the most compelling topics of research in political science, yet many aspects of authoritarian regime behavior remain unexplained. This book explores how different types of governments take action to shape the course of economic development, focusing on agriculture, a sector that is of crucial importance in the developing world. It explains variation in agricultural and food policy across regime type, who the winners and losers of these policies are, and whether they influence the stability of authoritarian governments. The book pushes us to think differently about the process linking economic development to political change, and to consider growth as an inherently politicized process rather than an exogenous driver of moves towards democracy.

Nearly every day brings news of another merger or acquisition involving the companies that control our food supply. Just how concentrated has this system become? At almost every key stage of the food system, four firms alone control 40% or more of the market, a level above which these companies have the power to drive up prices for consumers and reduce their rate of innovation. Researchers have identified additional problems resulting from these trends, including negative impacts on the environment, human health, and communities. This book reveals the dominant corporations, from the supermarket to the seed industry, and the extent of their control over markets. It also analyzes the strategies these firms are using to reshape society in order to further increase their power, particularly in terms of their bearing upon the more vulnerable sections of society, such as recent immigrants, ethnic minorities and those of lower socioeconomic status. Yet this study also shows that these trends are not inevitable. Opposed by numerous efforts, from microbreweries to seed saving networks, it explores how such opposition has encouraged the most powerful firms to make small but positive changes.

In Food and Power in Hawai`i, island scholars and writers from backgrounds in academia, farming, and community organizations discuss new ways of looking at food policy and practices in terms of social justice and sustainability. Each of the nine essays describes Hawai`i’s foodscapes and collectively makes the case that food is a focal point for public policy making, social activism, and cultural mobilization. With its rich case studies, the volume aims to further debate on the agrofood system and extends the discussion of food problems in Hawai`i. Given the island geography, high dependency on imported food has often been portrayed as the primary challenge in Hawai`i, and the traditional response has been localized food production. The book argues, however, that aspects such as differentiated access, the history of colonization, and the neoliberalized nature of the economy also need to be considered for the right transformation of our food system. The essays point out the diversity of food challenges that Hawai`i faces. They include controversies over land use policies, a gendered and racialized farming population, benefits and costs of biotechnology, stratified access to nutritious foods, as well as ensuring the economic viability of farms. Defying the reductive approach that looks only at calories or tonnage of food produced and consumed as indicators of a sound food system, Food and Power in Hawai`i shows how food problems are necessarily layered with other sociocultural and economic problems, and uses food democracy as the guiding framework. By linking the debate on food explicitly to the issues of power and democracy, each contributor seeks to reframe a discourse, previously focused on increasing the volume of locally grown food or protecting farms, into the broader objectives of social justice, ecological sustainability, and economic viability.

Drawing on ethnography conducted in Israel since the late 1990s, Food and Power considers how power is produced, reproduced, negotiated, and subverted in the contemporary Israeli culinary sphere. Nir Avieli explores issues such as the definition of Israeli cuisine, the ownership of hummus, the privatization of communal Kibbutz dining rooms, and food at a military prison for Palestinian detainees to show how cooking and eating create ambivalence concerning questions of strength and weakness and how power and victimization are mixed into a sense of self-justification that maintains internal cohesion among Israeli Jews.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the production and consumption of food, suitable for use in undergraduate classrooms, either at the intermediate or advanced level. It takes an intersectional approach to difference and power and approaches standard subjects in the geography of food with a fresh perspective focusing on inequality, uneven production and legacies of colonialism. The book also focuses on places and regions often overlooked in conventional narratives, such as the Americas in the domestication of plants. The topics covered in the textbook include: descriptions and analyses of food systems histories of agricultural development with a focus on the roles of different regions major commodities such as meat, grains and produce with a focus on the place of production contemporary challenges in the food system, including labor, disasters/conflict and climate change recent and emerging trends in food and agriculture such as lab-grown meat and vertical urban farms Geographies of Food and Power takes a synthetic approach by discussing food as something produced within an interconnected system, in which labor, food quality and the environment are considered together. It will be a valuable resource for students of human geography, environmental geography, economic geography, food studies and development.

Grabbing Power explores the history of agribusiness and land conflicts in Northern Honduras focusing on the Aguán Valley, where peasant movements battle large palm oil producers for the right to land. In the wake of a military coup that overthrew Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, rural communities in the Aguán have been brutally repressed, with over 60 people killed in just over two years. United States military aid--spent in the name of the War on Drugs--fuels the Honduran government's ability to repress its people. A strong and inspiring movement for land, food and democracy has grown over the last two years, and it shows no sign of backing down.

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At the relatively young age of 26, Adam Hart felt he had hit rock bottom. As he describes it, he was "living in an overweight body, extremely stressed and experiencing depression and anxiety attacks." He was also suffering with asthma and had developed an allergy to fresh fruit. Already feeling that he was living off medications, he had just been prescribed another drug, this time for high cholesterol. In the doctor's office, he was then told he was pre-diabetic. Adam puts his situation down to having spent most of his life up to that point as a human "doing" rather than a human "being." He decided then and there, in that doctor's office, to completely turn his lifestyle and his health around. Five years after embarking on a "journey of self-discovery," Adam is proof of what making a real commitment to personal health and wellbeing can look like. He has lost over 40 pounds, reversed his pre-diabetic state and eliminated his daily depression, saying that he now lives his life with "abundant health and happiness." In The Power of Food, Adam shows us how we can also achieve "abundant health and happiness" by eating foods with power. Power foods--whole, natural foods such as nuts, seeds, grains, legumes and beans, fruit and vegetables--are packed with nutrients and vitamins. The Power of Food shows us how to prepare and cook these foods-- simply--to make delicious meals. Much more than a collection of recipes, this book contains detailed profiles of 24 key power ingredients from each food group, for example, "The Power Nuts" (pistachios, almonds, pecans and cashews). With their whimsical titles and fresh takes on traditional favourites, the recipes in this book are sure to appeal: Outrageous Olive Tapenade Hungry Hungry Hummus Nude Pad Thai Oh My, Kale Gomae! Just Do It Hemp Milk That's An Amazing Strawberry Cheesecake Complemented by Adam's personal story as well as a thorough explanation of how to put your own The Power of Food plan into place, this book is both inspirational and practical. A must-have book, whether you want to turn your lifestyle and health around completely, like Adam, or just start taking steps to do so.

Explains how food imparts a living wisdom that is separate from the science of nutrient values • Offers an approach to diet from the perspective of ancient peoples, who understood how the energetic qualities of food affect both physical and spiritual health • Includes a comprehensive catalog of the energetic properties of myriad foods--from chicken, beef, and potatoes to garlic, avocados, zucchini, and grapefruit Food is more than simply fuel. It imparts a living wisdom that is beyond the science and mechanics of calories, grams, and nutrient values. Ancient peoples, through their relationships with the plants and animals providing their food, understood that their food conveyed the unique energetic qualities of its source, such as swiftness from wild deer and groundedness from root vegetables. With the rise of agribusiness and industrial food production, people have become disconnected from the sources of their food and are no longer able to register the subtle rhythms, harmony, and energies that food can convey. This separation has thrown the basic human-food relationship out of balance--to the detriment of human consciousness. In Food Energetics, Steve Gagné shows how to revitalize our connection to food and remedy our physical and psychic imbalances with the wisdom of food energetics. He provides a comprehensive catalog of foods and their corresponding energetic properties and explains how each food affects us at the deepest spiritual level. By demonstrating how to plan meals that incorporate both dominant and compliant foods, he shows how to provide truly healthy cuisine that nourishes the body and the soul.