From Field to Fork

Mark L. Wilson, Agriculture and Human Values Once in a while somebody writes an important book near the end of a long, distinguished career. Paul B. Thompson, after 40 years in the business, accomplished this in his recent book: From Field to Fork, food ethics for everyone. With the eye of a philosopher and the rigor of an agricultural economist - Thompson is both - he covers big ideas about food ... the book's strength is its broad swath. It leaves deeper coverage to the motivated reader and he cites over 350 references to point the way. If you want to hack your way through the thicket of food ethics, From Field to Fork is a good place to start. Splendid work, Dr. Thompson.

Claire Worthington Mills, Environmental Values Throughout From Field to Fork, Thompson analyzes a variety of aspects of our contemporary food system, including its relation to obesity, social injustice, livestock welfare, an individuals dietary choice, localism, environmental impact and genetically modified food. With each subject, he goes through some of the ethically relevant information and gives an account of common ethical arguments made about that subject, but his writing does not side with one approach over anotherI would highly recommend this one to anyone already interested in the field of dietary ethics, or a related field, and especially anyone who is considering writing on the topic.

Amy Bentley, Times Literary Supplement From Field to Fork provides a clear, composed foray into the different ways to think about such unweildy ethical problems as GMOs, meat eating, the treatment of livestock, and charitable food aid undercutting the subsistence farmers' livelihoods.

Claire Worthington Mills, Environmental Values I would recommend this book as essential to anyone writing in the field of dietary ethics, even if just to check and make sure that there isn't an opposing harm they aren't considering. I believe this book stands out as unique in its field as a result of who wrote it; you can tell this book was written by an expert in the field and he does a good job summarizing the source material and its reception, both in its own field and more widely in philosophy.

Professor and Head of Section for Consumption, Bioethics and Governance, University of Copenhagen Thompson convincingly shows how food production and food consumption are linked to ethical issues regarding social justice, the environment, and risk. Drawing on three decades of scholarship, he constructs a map of the field that brings together often disconnected discussions concerning (among many other things) poverty, obesity, animal welfare, environmental protection and gene technology. The book clearly lives up to its subtitle, 'Food Ethics for Everyone,' as it is a highly accessible, comprehensive and fair-minded guide to the field.

Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, and author of Food Politics From Field to Fork m...

Paul B. Thompson has been a leading scholar in food ethics for over thirty years. He was present at the founding of three professional societies for food ethics and has served in an advisory capacity for the U.S. National Research Council, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Genome Canada, and Wageningen University and Research Institute in the Netherlands , among others. He edited the Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics (Springer) and writes a blog for Thornapple Community Supported Agriculture in Lansing MI.

Introduction, with a Rough Guide to Ethics ; Chapter 1: You Are NOT What You Eat ; Chapter 2: Food Ethics and Social Injustice ; Chapter 3: The Ethics of Diet and Obesity ; Chapter 4: The Fundamental Problem of Food Ethics ; Chapter 5: Livestock Welfare and the Ethics of Producing Meat ; Chapter 6: The Allure of the Local: Food Systems and Environmental Impact ; Chapter 7: Green Revolution Food Technology and Its Discontents ; Chapter 8: Once More, This Time with Feeling: Ethics, Risk and the Future of Food ; Bibliography