From Field to Fork

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

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.