num_pages: 352
description: The human practice of farming food has failed. There are 7500 known varieties of domesticated apples; we regularly eat about five. Seventy-five percent of the worlds food derives from five animals and twelve plants. Factory-farmed meat is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions (about 14 percent larger than transportation) and consumes 75 percent of the water in drought-prone regions such as the West. We are stuck in a rut of limited choices and the vast majority of what we eat is detrimental to our health and the welfare of the planet. But what if we could eliminate agriculture as we know it? What if we could start over?James McWilliamss search for a more expansive palate leads him to those who are actively exploring the fringes of what we can eat a group of outliers seeking nutrition innovation outside the industrial food system. Here we meet insect manufacturers seaweed harvesters road kill foragers plant biologists and oyster farmers who seek to open both our minds and our mouthsand to overturn our most basic assumptions about food health and ethics.Eating Promiscuously generates hope for a more tasteful futureone in which we eat thousands of foods rather than dozenswith a new philosophy that could save both ourselves and our planet.
language: English
title: Eating Promiscuously: Adventures in the Future of Food
publisher: Counterpoint