Scan barcode
everydayreading's review against another edition
4.0
I almost gave this up about a quarter in because I was getting bored with the tales of working in the fields, but after that I couldn't put it down. I loved learning more about Wal-Mart and Applebees, especially.
ginferra's review against another edition
4.0
Engrossing read, even with issues. Maybe it helps that I got this for $1 at a resale shop, so my expectations were not high. McMillan writes personal essays exploring her experience in the food industry, only doing 2 months per stint, and backing up her stories with data. If you are expecting a deep exploration, you will be disappointed, but as I was not, I was both entertained and informed. I am a leisure reader, not a researcher or academic, so that's how I approached this book.
emmastia's review against another edition
2.0
I started this book right after it came out and was very excited about the buzz it generated. But I did not get that far and had to return it to the library. In the meantime, I had an opportunity to hear the author speak. She was excellent and it made me even more excited to return to the book. When I finally did, I found her story much less compelling and frankly a bit boring.
brandylovestoread's review against another edition
2.0
I enjoyed the first and third parts of the book the best. But nothing was earth shattering and at points she gets almost too academic to prove her point ... When have a page is a footnote ... You've gone too far,
marybethbutler's review
5.0
This is a really wonderful book about how our food gets to us. McMillan went "undercover" as a worker in the harvest fields of California, at Walmart (partly in the produce section) and at Applebee's.
Key is the realization that no food at Applebee's is fresh...it's all prepared elsewhere and brought in. If we want fresh food, we need to make it at home (cheaper and almost as fast) or eat at local places, not chains. Not shocking or new news, but a well-told and excellently researched set of stories.
Key is the realization that no food at Applebee's is fresh...it's all prepared elsewhere and brought in. If we want fresh food, we need to make it at home (cheaper and almost as fast) or eat at local places, not chains. Not shocking or new news, but a well-told and excellently researched set of stories.
sandyd's review
5.0
The title is a little off the mark - this enlightening piece of nonfiction could be more accurately labeled "The American Way of Food Production".
I learned a great deal in each section, and am very happy I don't have to do migrant farm labor in California (picking grapes, peaches, or garlic), work stocking baked goods shelves or produce at a Walmart in Michigan, or plate food in an Applebee's (the most popular sit-down restaurant in the world?!) kitchen.
The parts about Detroit's urban agriculture and the definitions of "food deserts" were an unexpected bonus.
I learned a great deal in each section, and am very happy I don't have to do migrant farm labor in California (picking grapes, peaches, or garlic), work stocking baked goods shelves or produce at a Walmart in Michigan, or plate food in an Applebee's (the most popular sit-down restaurant in the world?!) kitchen.
The parts about Detroit's urban agriculture and the definitions of "food deserts" were an unexpected bonus.
katiehopbooks's review
3.0
Some good informative bits sprinkled throughout and on the whole interesting, but as others have echoed the author just rubbed me the wrong way at times.
bookwormmichelle's review
4.0
I liked this a LOT more than I thought I would after hearing it compared to Nickel and Dimed. It's nowhere near as much political screed and a lot more actual description and experience than Eihrenreich seems able to do. The author, a 32 year old college educated white woman, worked "undercover" (without telling most people she was a journalist) at various produce farms in California, Wal-Marts in Michigan, and an Applebee's in New York City. She also tried to get along and live within her income. She was pretty much adopted by the workers she spent time with, who helped her to get along and feed herself and find places to live in her various stops. She describes quite well the difficult lives of the people she meets--and it's true, minimum-wage workers and migrant farm workers have very tough lives. She even gets injured on the job, cutting garlic in California, and gets heat exhaustion at another place, and she knows full well just how lucky she is to be able to just stop and leave. She brings up a number of good points about Americans, the food we eat, and the way we grow and distribute that food, and she's right--it IS much harder to find good fresh food on a meager salary in inner cities. McMillan does occasionally venture into territory that necessitates our finding out she isn't exactly terribly economically literate--she keeps saying that farmworkers need to be paid more, but that produce prices should be lower, and her only vague ideas to make those two rather incompatible goals work out is that there should be less money going to middlemen/distributors and less monopolistic distribution (meaning, apparently, get rid of Wal-mart and everything will be OK.) She also several times points out that the French pay more for their food than we do, but that doesn't mean they LIKE food more, because they are so lucky as to have a government that pays for like almost everything else--and she never mentions that SOMEONE has to pay for all those goodies, and that France in fact DOES pay, in a sluggish economy, one of the highest unemployment rates in the EC, and ginormous government debt and high taxes. Sigh. So this isn't great economics. But it IS good experiential reporting, and I'll never look at the produce bin at Walmart or an appetizer trio at Applebee's in quite the same way again. One of MacMillan's best points is that many lower income Americans might WANT to buy fresher food, but it is difficult to find and buy it, and also we've lost a lot of the knowledge of how to COOK it. This is so true. It's really hard to know what to do with that kohlrabi if you've never cooked it before. I know a young woman who grew a garden and donated the produce to our local homeless shelter, but the residents there, and even the staff working there, had NO idea how to prepare it, so she had to teach them how to cook with it. Food preparation education would certainly help, but she seems to want public schools to do that, and they really don't seem able to handle what we've already given them to do, let alone give them more responsibilities. She also lauds Michelle Obama's campaign to get better, healthier food available in cities, but barely mentions that one of the "star" grocery chains lining up to go there is Wal-Mart. And she doesn't really mention that one of the best ways to improve the lives of the migrant farm workers would be to change our totally insane immigration system to allow freer movement and legal status for the farmworker population. Good, solid and very interesting book!
pattydsf's review
3.0
I started this book because I like to suggest some non-fiction when my book group picks books. As I read this I decided it was not what the group would usually be looking for. It is different from other food books we have read, but not that different. We have read Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and The Dirty Life by Kristen Kimball. Both of those books were from more of a producer's viewpoint.
McMillan is looking at America's food from a eater's point of view, in my opinion. She is looking to see why a nation that produces so much good food, does not manage to get that food to all of our citizens. The movement for better food; ideas like Comunity Sustained Agriculture (CSA) and farmer's markets have not made a big difference for inner-city families.
Although I found McMillan's experiences fascinating, I am not sure I see any solutions to the problem she is concerned about. I am not sure she felt she found any solutions either. We have the food, we have amazing processing and transportation systems in place, but I don't see any way to make the systems work differently. If we want all people to have the ability to eat healthy meals all the time, we will have to make changes to much more that our food systems.
One of McMillan's concerns is food deserts - places in this country where getting fresh food is almost impossible. While I was reading this book, I mentioned food deserts to my hairdresser. This was an entirely new idea to her. I believe this is the kind of person who should be reading this book. Tracie McMillan, I think, is writing for people who have not thought about food very much. For those readers, she is telling a new tale and I think they would see their grocery stores in a whole new light.
McMillan is looking at America's food from a eater's point of view, in my opinion. She is looking to see why a nation that produces so much good food, does not manage to get that food to all of our citizens. The movement for better food; ideas like Comunity Sustained Agriculture (CSA) and farmer's markets have not made a big difference for inner-city families.
Although I found McMillan's experiences fascinating, I am not sure I see any solutions to the problem she is concerned about. I am not sure she felt she found any solutions either. We have the food, we have amazing processing and transportation systems in place, but I don't see any way to make the systems work differently. If we want all people to have the ability to eat healthy meals all the time, we will have to make changes to much more that our food systems.
One of McMillan's concerns is food deserts - places in this country where getting fresh food is almost impossible. While I was reading this book, I mentioned food deserts to my hairdresser. This was an entirely new idea to her. I believe this is the kind of person who should be reading this book. Tracie McMillan, I think, is writing for people who have not thought about food very much. For those readers, she is telling a new tale and I think they would see their grocery stores in a whole new light.
relytolley's review
4.0
read the review on my blog, here: http://www.potlikkery.com/2012/04/american-way-of-eating.html