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Food Fight

From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet

Stuart Gillespie

$39.99

Hardback

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English
Canongate Books
10 April 2025
'Scholarly, literate and deeply moving, this isn't just a good read, it's an essential reference for anyone hoping to understand the food system, why it's broken and how we might imagine fixing it' CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN

Food is life but our food system is killing us. Designed in a different century for a different purpose - to mass-produce cheap calories to prevent famine - it's now generating obesity, ill-health and driving the climate crisis. We need to transform it into a system that can nourish all eight billion of us and the planet we live on.

In Food Fight, Stuart Gillespie reveals how the system we once relied upon for global nutrition has warped into the very thing making us sick. From its origins in colonial plunder through to the last few decades of neoliberalism, the system now lies in the tight grip of a handful of powerful transnationals who are playing for profit at any cost - aided by governments who let them get away with it. With his eye trained on the future and on solutions within our grasp, Gillespie also celebrates the impact of success stories from around the world, driven by remarkable citizens, social movements, policy makers and politicians. These case studies offer hope that, by organising and learning, we can build a better food future for ourselves and for our children.

Both unflinching expos and revolutionary call to arms, Food Fight maps a way towards a new system that gives us hope for a future of global health and justice.
By:  
Imprint:   Canongate Books
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Edition:   Main
Dimensions:   Height: 240mm,  Width: 159mm,  Spine: 32mm
Weight:   582g
ISBN:   9781837260430
ISBN 10:   1837260435
Pages:   368
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Primary ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Stuart Gillespie has been fighting to transform our dysfunctional food system for the past forty years. Stuart worked with a range of UN agencies across the world, before joining the International Food Policy Research Institute in 1999. Here he founded the Regional Network on AIDS, Livelihoods and Food Security, the Transform Nutrition research consortium, a flagship Agriculture for Nutrition and Health programme and the Stories of Change initiative, amongst a host of other interventions in public food and nutrition policy. Stuart's newsletter, Food Fight Files, tackles the political and commercial drivers of food injustice and malnutrition and what can and should be done about them. stuartgillespie.substack.com | @stuartgillespie.bsky.social

Reviews for Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet

Gillespie writes beautifully with an urgent clarity. This isn't just a good read, it's an essential reference for anyone hoping to understand the food system, why it's broken and how we might imagine fixing it. Scholarly, literate and deeply moving - Gillespie deftly draws on global expertise built over four decades working in nutrition and food policy. Food Fight is the essential food book of this year and years to come -- CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN, author of ULTRA PROCESSED PEOPLE If you want to change our rotten corrupt food system, you first have to understand it. Food Fight is the gripping book we have been waiting for, from a veteran of the food wars. Essential reading for anyone interested in our health and the planet -- TIM SPECTOR, author of SPOON FED and FOOD FOR LIFE From his years of experience working in international nutrition, Gillespie has on-the-ground knowledge of why and how global food systems lead to widespread hunger, obesity and environmental damage, and what needs to be done to make those systems healthier for all. He makes it clear that this food fight is crucial to take on -- MARION NESTLE, author of FOOD POLITICS The need for a radical overhaul of our food system has never been more urgent. Food Fight powerfully articulates the intricate web of historical, economic and political factors that have led us to this point of crisis. It is a clarion call for action, demanding that we rethink and restructure our food systems not just for today, but for generations to come. We owe it to our children and our planet to move beyond incremental reforms and embrace true transformation -- HENRY DIMBLEBY, author of RAVENOUS Stuart Gillespie has spent over forty years working on the front-line of nutrition policies across the world - in this brilliant book, he pulls together why we're still seeing such high levels of malnutrition in the world, the role of corporations and key suggestions on how to improve it. A must-read for those interested in food and nutrition -- DEVI SRIDHAR, Professor and Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh and bestselling author of PREVENTABLE Stuart Gillespie's decades in the trenches and in corridors of power have made him a clarion of reason and good sense in the battle against hunger. With ripping prose and a global sweep, Gillespie deploys a lifetime's evidence and brilliant argument to show that the only reasonable way to fix our food system is to transform it completely -- RAJ PATEL, author of STUFFED AND STARVED: THE HIDDEN BATTLE FOR THE WORLD FOOD SYSTEM Stuart has managed to marshal data and information that adds fascinating insight to understanding of the issues and solutions, and his characteristically sharp writing gets to the crux of how complex issues are so clearly interrelated. If we truly want to make our food systems healthy and equitable, it is this kind of long run, intersectional understanding of the issues and solutions that is needed -- JODY HARRIS, co-convenor of the Food Equity Centre This is such a clear and easy to read pathway through some really knotty debates. Only someone with Stuart Gillespie's deep and personal knowledge of global food politics could have written something that I would recommend both to global experts and to my teenage kids - not only to understand the food system, but to bring the fight to where it matters. Our food system is in jeopardy and it is intrinsically unjust - Food Fight is a clarion call for urgent new thinking for a new generation of food activists -- NICHOLAS NISBETT, Professor of Global Public Policy, Nutrition and Health Equity


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