Stuffed & Starved : Press reviews

‘One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind, and a gift to a world hungering for justice.’

Naomi Klein, author of No Logo

‘Patel’s range is impressive, taking us from the soaring suicide rate among India farmers to the emergence of social movements among the landless in Brazil and Africa, the sophisticated manipulation of consumers in the rich north… Patel pulls all these threads together compellingly, and there is much that is original… This is a book full of insight, that makes an important contribution to understanding that the politics of food is not a narrow matter of shopping, ethical or otherwise. It involves the urgent study of globalisation and social justice, and the politics of modern capitalism itself.’

Felicity Lawrence, Guardian

‘In plain but passionate words, Raj Patel proves that ‘free’ trade—free of any ethical limits, that is—is the last solution we should look to in the struggle to feed the world. He then reveals better ‘ways of being free,’ showing why strong local food systems first! is a rallying cry as much for Zambia as for Canada, as much for India as the United States. Can we eat healthier, tastier food and give the world’s poorest the power to feed themselves? We can, and Patel will help us write the recipe.’

J.B. MacKinnon, co-author of The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating

'Vital reading'

Craig Sams, president of Green & Blacks Ltd and Chair of the Soil Association

‘A magisterial account of the global food system. This is the kind of book from which you emerge enlightened, surprised, angry and determined.’

Independent

‘There is a passage towards the end of… Stuffed and Starved, which elevates its author to the level of soothsayer…the food crisis has turned it from being a niche read into the literary equivalent of a crystal ball…His analysis shows how communities around the planet have been disempowered by a system that… dictates unhealthy and limited choices to an overworked and underpaid workforce.’

Ed Pilkington, Guardian

‘Patel’s anecdotes illustrate a careful argument. By laying out the historical development of current systems, he shows that they are recent and potentially transient… His plea is for a healthier world, but above all one that is more just.’

Guardian

‘This critique of the world food system could not be better timed… Patel writes with passion and commitment.’

Scotland on Sunday

‘Have you ever thought that there may be a direct connection between increasing obesity in the industrialised countries and poverty and starvation in the rest of the world? That both are the direct result of capitalism and transnational corporations is perhaps not such a surprise, but Raj Patel explains just how this relationship comes about… A must-read for anyone keen to understand how the present system of food production and distribution grinds the poorest in the world while making the rich richer... He writes with an easy flowing eloquency but also an urgency and commitment rare in an academic writer.'

Morning Star

‘Raj Patel’s book confirms a widespread suspicion that the [global food] system is grotesquely out of balance – and not just because 800 million people in the world are undernourished. For the first time ever, there are actually more overweight than underfed people in the world. Patel argues that hunger and obesity are symptoms of the same global malaise. This exhaustively researched book demonstrates how the “choice” we get in supermarkets is an illusion: what we are offered is dictated by the reality of a market controlled by a few key players, and comes at an undisclosed cost to others. It also deconstructs the long accepted folk wisdom that “the poor are hungry because they are lazy”, or, conversely, that the wealthy are fat because they eat too richly. Patel writes with a precision and clarity that make his unavoidably bulky suitcase of statistics accessible.’

New Statesman

‘Patel’s broad treatment helps the layman connect the dots, as well as hear the voices of those who occupy the lower rungs of the global food chain.’

Time

‘If you want to know the real cost of the food on your plate, read this book.’

Tribune

‘An important and radical contribution to the literature on the food we eat and the world in which we live.’

Socialist Review

‘With the origins and politics of food such a hot topic at the moment, Patel ensures you are well informed for the debate...Food Book of the Week.’

Birmingham Mail

‘This may help you understand the politics of food and modern capitalism and the world’s injustice.’

Greenock Telegraph

‘Patel probes the globalisation of food and its effects – from under-pressure farmers in India, to the peasants made landless in Brazil, to the policies of Wal Mart.’

Bristol Evening Post

‘Angry, wide-ranging and persuasive, this is a powerful argument for a just food system that would man better health for everyone.’

Oxford Today

‘Raj Patel’s extraordinary first book Stuffed and Starved investigates the links between the impoverished farmers of the developing world, the Global South as he describes the region, and the food that is being piled into shopping baskets in the developed world.’

African Business

‘Patel’s hourglass metaphor for the operation of the global food system is compelling. Thought-provoking.’

Books of the Year, Australian Book Review

‘Comprehensively tackles big questions’

Healthy and Organic Living

‘This political, provocative book will shake you from the cosy belief that we are doing "all we can" to save the planet.’

Westside

‘Raj Patel’s book Stuffed and Starved is a captivating historical analysis of how corporate control of government food policy has generated the diet-related disease that plagues rich countries while also being the primary cause of the poverty and starvation that kill millions elsewhere every year… Essential reading.’

Management Today

‘[An] extraordinary first book.’

Red Orbit website

‘Patel marshals a compelling argument in favour of a decentralised food system that recognises the concept of ‘food sovereignty’… This is by no means an original argument, but Patel’s global perspective and strong sense of narrative reinvigorates it.’

Eden magazine

‘Acclaimed and truly global study of the politics of food.’

Publishing News

‘This is one book above all I’d love to see at the top of the bestseller lists: an important subject brilliantly handled by Patel. I hope it will be remembered as long as Small is Beautiful has been and gains as much influence.'

Publishing News