Making Supper Safe

July 11, 2011
Hewitt (The Town that Food Saved) takes a broad look at the politics surrounding American food and finds more irony than logic. With a cast of characters including a seed company owner, a dumpster diver, a lawyer specializing in foodborne illness, a raw milk dairy proprietor, and a family that nearly lost a child to E. coli O157:H7, Hewitt provides information salted with frequent tongue-in-cheek humor. While the hot food topicsâthe seed monopoly, antibiotic-fed livestock and poultry, genetically modified foods, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Actâare all discussed in detail, making it clear why "we've lost trust in our food," it's not completely clear how Hewitt thinks "we can get it back." Hewitt's personal solution of raising most of his food and avoiding supermarkets won't necessarily work for urban populations, and readers may not agree that "accept the slim risk of pathogenic bacteria" is the first step to making food safer. Despite his arguable conclusions, Making Supper Safe will inform and entertain a broad audience of foodies, environmentalists, and health-attuned citizens.

July 1, 2011
In chatty, self-referential prose, Vermonter Hewitt scrutinizes the nation's food supply to come to some sort of conclusion as to how food-borne illnesses have sown fear among the population. He begins with the case of someone nearly fearless about what he consumes, a man who sustains himself by scavenging food that others have discarded. Hewitt casts a jaundiced eye on efforts to increase the food supply through genetic modification of grains, holding in equal disdain their scientific viability and their concentration of economic power and control in the clutches of just a few major corporations. He investigates the introduction of antibiotics into the food chain to solve some shortcomings in megasized animal husbandry and those otherwise beneficial medicines' possible role in outbreaks of bacterial contamination. In light of current concerns raised by recent European food scares, this book will surely find an eagerly receptive audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)