No One Eats Alone

Book excerpt: In today's fast-paced, fast food world, everyone seems to be eating alone, all the time--whether it's at their desks or in the car. Michael Carolan argues that needs to change if we want healthy, equitable, and sustainable food. We can no longer afford to ignore human connections as we struggle with dire problems like hunger, obesity, toxic pesticides, antibiotic resistance, depressed rural economies, and low-wage labor. In No One Eats Alone he tells the stories of people getting together to change their relationship to food and to each other--from community farms where suburban moms and immigrant families work side by side, to online exchanges where entrepreneurs share kitchen space, to "hackers" who trade information about farm machinery repairs. This is how real change happens, Carolan contends: when we start acting like citizens first and consumers second.