Ocean State Libraries

"As abundant and safe as the American food supply appears to be, the state of our health reveals the presence of staggering deficiencies in both the system that produces food and the forces that regulate it. Bittman leaves no issue unexamined; agricultural practices, government legislation, fad diets, and corporate greed all come under scrutiny and show that the issues governing what ends up in our market basket and on our tables are both complex...

"Mark Bittman made headlines three years ago when it was revealed that, for the first time, the New York Times opinion page would feature a food writer to help us make sense of the tangled webs of food, health, environment, politics, and culture. As an opinion columnist, Mark has delighted us, enraged us, and inspired us to do more for ourselves and our world with the same no-nonsense style. In the tradition of his NYT bestselling Food Matters, this...

In the early 1980s, farmers were suffering through the worst economic crisis to hit rural America since the Great Depression. Land prices were down, operating costs and interest rates were up, and severe weather devastated crops. Instead of receiving assistance from the government as they had in the 1930s, these hardworking family farmers were threatened with foreclosure by the very agency that Franklin Delano Roosevelt created to help them. Desperate,...